Mr. Chip & Charge

• What a joke, Djokovic!

  2008-02-22 00:49:00
  I’ve had a keen interest for Swedish tennis since a long time back and have a few friends over there who are always keeping me up to date on the local news. During the past few days, it has come to my attention that there’s been quite a stir regarding what Fredrik Rosengren wrote in his blog about Novak Djokovic.
  
  For those of you who are non-Swedes or have missed out on last week’s events, Rosengren wrote that Djokovic clearly tanked the match against Gilles Simon in Marseille. I was there and watched it - and couldn’t agree more with the coach of Mario Ancic. “Djoko” should actually never have won a set if it wasn’t for the mighty choke from the Frenchman. All the way from the start, it was very obvious that Djokovic wasn’t interested in winning this match. I was shocked to see him show up in Marseille after his severe (?) illness during the weekend.
  
  If you retire from a crucial Davis Cup tie being two sets to one up, you have absolutely nothing to do on a match court three days later. Djokovic obviously only saw the pile of money and flew in with the tournament jet, picked up the cash and left in a hurry, most likely with an even worse health as a result. Clearly the people in his team are not giving him the right advice. A 20-year old with an incredibly bright future should make the right long-term investments where the health should always be prioritized a very, very long way ahead of fast appearance money.
  
  Djokovic’ spokesperson Benito Perez-Barbadillo obviously defended his employer and told Eurosport.se that it was not a bad decision of Djokovic to compete in Marseille. Well, as far as Benito goes, I put absolutely no importance at all to what he is saying. Most of us who have come across Perez-Barbadillo in a press room around the world (he used to be employed as a Communications Manager for the ATP) know that he is a person who doesn’t take his job seriously and only tries to impress a certain group of people.
  
  During the summer tournaments in Europe, it’s been well known that he’s out clubbing all night and then letting the volunteers at the tournament do all his work during the following day while he is hanging out with the Spanish players. Djokovic definitely needs to wizen up and be more selective in the people he lets into his group.

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