The world number one received the notice an hour and a half before the match and ignored it, arguing that “it makes no sense to do it before when I will be there after the match.”
A real scandal broke out in the Davis Cup, when Novak Djokovic refused to take a doping test as the duel between Serbia and Great Britain approaches.
It all started when the organization he asked the world number one that the test be carried out before facing Cameron Norrie (18°), well in advance, and the answer was a categorical “no”.
“This is the first time that it happens to me. There’s no point in doing it before when I’ll be there after the match. », Supported the athlete. And he immediately explained: “I haven’t completed the check yet because I’m missing a blood sample. They told me an hour and a half before starting and I have my routines before the matches and I don’t need to think at that moment about donating blood or urine.
But his defenses do not stop there, since Nole accuses the personnel responsible for taking the samples of persecution. “I discussed it with him (doctor) because it’s something that hasn’t happened to me in my 20 years of career. He sat in the corner and followed me for hours. It’s scandalous. I have always defended testing, but not before matches. There is nothing to hide, but there must be certain limits,” he stressed.
The problem is that the Serbian and all the tennis players present at the national tournament were aware that this could happen, because The International Tennis Federation brought together all the captains of the delegations present and informed them that surprise tests would be carried out before or after the matches, just like it is done in ITF competitions or ATP tournaments.
It wasn’t the only problem
But the setbacks don’t stop there. In the middle of the match against Norrie, won by Djokovic (6-4, 6-4), there was an angry reaction from him. It so happened that in the middle of the match, an English fan was counting out loud each bounce of the ball to mock the world champion and he responded with a hand to his ear, when he won the first set.
Then, at the end of the match, the rival fans shouted again and Djokovic told them: “yes, yes, continue. Don’t worry, I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Show respect! “. And then during the press conference he explained that “in competitions like Davis, players have to be prepared for that, but when you hear it in the moment, you react. “I just wanted to show them that I didn’t agree with this behavior.”
But that’s not all, because the next day, we learned that The Kosovo Tennis Federation will denounce the Serbs for singing nationalist songs before the already vilified match. It turns out that before we went out to play, we heard a song whose lyrics said that “the Serbian flag should fly from Prizren (a town in southern Kosovo) to Rumija (a mountain in Montenegro)” and the authorities did it. not like that of the country which declared itself independent.
In fact, Serbia and Kosovo are negotiating the normalization of their relations within the framework of a dialogue supported by the European Union and relations are somewhat tense.
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Source: Latercera
I’m Rose Brown , a journalist and writer with over 10 years of experience in the news industry. I specialize in covering tennis-related news for Athletistic, a leading sports media website. My writing is highly regarded for its quick turnaround and accuracy, as well as my ability to tell compelling stories about the sport.
