Novak Djokovic's season keeps getting worse. After finishing 2023 as a Master for the sixth time in his career, the Serbian said that the objective of the new year was to win the four Grand Slams. However, he will arrive in May with zero titles under his belt.
Djokovic announced his withdrawal from the Madrid Masters 1,000 this Saturday and will not be in the capital, where he has won three times: 2011, 2016 and 2019. The Serbian has spent the last few days playing golf and adopting a puppy, according to reports. could see on his social networks, but he has not revealed the reason for the withdrawal, which suggests that it is not a physical problem.
His next stop on the clay tour will be the Rome Masters 1,000, from May 8 to 19, where he has won six times, making it his most successful clay tournament. In the Italian capital he will play his second tournament on this surface this season, after losing in the Monte Carlo semifinals against Casper Ruud.
In total, this year, Djokovic has only played three tournaments; He reached the semifinals of the Australian Open, where he was eliminated by the eventual champion Jannik Sinner, he made the third round in Indian Wells, where he lost to Luca Nardi, and the aforementioned semifinals in the Principality.
Atypical start
It is a very atypical start to the campaign for the Serbian, who will turn 37 in May and it has not taken him that long to win a title since 2022, when he debuted in Rome, and 2018, when he did not lift a win until Wimbledon.
Despite the loss, Djokovic will be in Madrid this Monday to attend the Laureus awards ceremony at the Cibeles Palace. There, the one from Belgrade, who has won the main prize four times and could equal Roger Federer's five -Rafa Nadal has won it twice-, is nominated along with Max Verstappen, Leo Messi, Armand Duplantis, Noah Lyles and Erling Haaland.
The loss of Djokovic is an important blow for the Madrid organization, which seems to have already cleared up the mystery of Rafa Nadal, since the Spaniard has accumulated two training sessions at the Caja Mágica, and will endure until Sunday the doubt of Carlos Alcaraz, who He missed Monte Carlo and Barcelona due to discomfort in his right arm. The Murcian is the champion of the last two editions.
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