Courtesy: ESPN
Novak Djokovic has already turned his sights to the clay court season after replacing Roger Federer as world No. 2.
The Serb claimed his third straight victory over Federer as he surged past his rival in the semi-finals before beating world No. 1 Rafael Nadal 4-6 6-3 6-2 to claim his third title of 2011 at Indian Wells.
Having never previously beaten Nadal in five ATP Tour finals, Djokovic, who has won all 18 of his matches this season, has now targeted beating the 'King of Clay' on the red dirt.
The in-form Djokovic claimed he had been seeing the tennis ball "as large as a watermelon", but he insists that despite his impressive streak, nobody is invincible.
"I do have the best period of my life on the tennis court, but nobody is invincible," Djokovic said. "You are just trying to play your best in each match you're playing.
"I am extremely happy with the way I'm playing and with the success that I'm having. But I know that the season is very long, and I don't want to be too euphoric about the win. I need to celebrate a little bit, and then move on."
Djokovic will return to action at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami later this week, where he will bid to continue his unbeaten start to the season, before turning his attentions to the European clay-court season.
"I have a big will to win each match I'm playing and I want to keep on going, keep on playing good tennis. Hopefully I can recover and get ready for Miami," he said.
"I believe I can play well on [clay] and I have proven that in the last couple of years. I had a great clay court season in 2009 and 2008, and I've always played well at Roland Garros. In order to win trophies on that surface, big ones, I will need to be physically very, very fit.
"As the slowest surface, it requires a lot of physical strength and endurance and I have been working hard on it for a while. I will definitely pay attention to it more."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment