Concern is growing for Djokovic as he withdraws from Madrid

Well, it didn’t take long for Novak Djokovic to make the maybe first of several tough decisions regarding his clay season. After his obvious physical struggles in Monte-Carlo and Banja Luka, the World No°1 decided on Saturday to withdraw from the Masters 1000 in Madrid.

Surely the last defeat against Dusan Lajovic on Friday sealed the deal. And you could nearly guess it while reading between the lines of his few words about what was going on: his current fitness doesn’t allow him to compete at his best level.

“I had my chances, but I didn’t take them. I played quite passively, with many mistakes and that resulted in the defeat. “I was way below my desired level. I can’t win against opponents who are so solid on this surface with this game. I didn’t even feel good physically on the court: I felt slow, with sluggish legs; I missed a lot of balls and was totally out of shot. At times I played well, but well below my level.”

Djokovic’s Roland-Garros now seems in limbo…

The worries around that right elbow then keep growing now as the Djoker decides he cannot go on playing on clay right now. Should he make his come-back in Rome, questions would still be strong around his abilities to be a contender for Roland-Garros or not, as it’s tough to think he’s going to use this time off to train rather than to rehab that right elbow. Then he will still have a huge lack of time spent on that red clay. The coming week might actually be decisive for his Roland-Garros hopes as a whole because if he can’t get better by the time Rome comes in, would it be worth it at all to play in Paris?

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The other issue for Djokovic is also the number of points he has to defend in the coming weeks and months: last year he played in the final of the Serbia Open, the semi-finals in Madrid and he won in Rome before reaching the quarter-finals in Paris. It’s 1870 points in total out of his current 7240 total. He still has a nice amount but losing those points would still mean losing ground for World No. 1. At this stage of his career though, Djokovic cares more about the Grand Slam titles than about the throne. And right now he might be wondering why he should put his elbow in jeopardy for Wimbledon by insisting on playing the clay season in that shape…

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