Djokovic says he’s been working hard on fitness for Roland-Garros

A few eyebrows were raised when world No 1 Novak Djokovic accepted a wildcard into this week’s Geneva Open, a rare competitive outing the week before a Grand Slam.

But having played sporadically since the Australian Open and not performed as he would have liked in Monte-Carlo or Rome, the Serbian says an extra week of play will be as good, if not better than practice.

“The reason why I chose to come and play is because I feel like at this moment, there is no better practice for me than match play,” Djokovic said, in quotes run on the ATP Tour website.

“I feel like I need more matches, even if it’s one match, two matches, three, four hopefully. It’s good for me, because that’s the way for me to try to find that kind of form that I need for Roland-Garros.”

Djokovic is, of course, the defending champion at Roland-Garros, having beaten Casper Ruud in the final 12 months ago.

He’ll open his title bid in Geneva on Wednesday – his 37th birthday – against Yannick Hanfmann and said he’s been working hard off the court to be ready.

“In terms of fitness, I’ve dedicated quite a bit of time with my new fitness coach to build the endurance, to build physical strength and capabilities that I need in order to play a best-of-five Grand Slam on the physically most demanding surface, which is clay,” he said.

“So hopefully I’m going to get more than one match here in Geneva, that’s the goal and then let’s see what happens in Paris.”

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