{"id":35799,"date":"2021-02-17T00:12:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T01:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=35799"},"modified":"2021-02-17T07:00:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T07:00:51","slug":"tennis-damning-verdict-against-djokovic-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=35799","title":{"rendered":"Tennis' damning verdict against Djokovic claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former tennis player Sam Groth has joined the chorus of doubters who believe Novak Djokovic overstated his injury status during the tournament.<\/a><\/p>\n

Djokovic last night overcame a sluggish start to defeat German world No.7 Alexander Zverev, 6-7(6), 6-2, 6-4, 7-6(6)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Serb's mystery injury around his midsection<\/a> has been a source of contention at the Australian Open. Asked last Friday straight after his third-round win about being ready for his next match, Djokovic replied: "I know it's a tear, definitely, of the muscle. … I don't know if I'm going to step out onto the court or not."<\/p>\n

Watch the Australian Open with live streams of every court at 9Now. Click here to start watching!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The top ranked men's player<\/a> on Sunday even admitted he would've retired from the tournament had it not been a Grand Slam event.<\/p>\n

\"Novak's<\/p>\n

Since revealing the potential seriousness of the injury, Djokovic has been pushed to five sets once and four sets twice on his way to a semi-final berth.<\/p>\n

For years the world No.1 has been accused of playing up injury and using it as a distraction when he's in trouble during a match.<\/p>\n

Groth, who reached a top ranking of 53 in singles and 24 in doubles, joined a growing list of coaches, rival players and pundits who doubt the severity of the injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

"Is he injured? I don't know," Groth told Nine.<\/p>\n

"If he is, it's not hindering him because he won in five against Fritz with the injury, he beat Zverev, an amazing opponent and I thought it was going to be a tough match and it turned out to be.<\/p>\n

"You don't play those kind of physical encounters and get through them like he is if the injury is hampering you to a point where you can't play.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"I'm not saying he's not injured but it can't be that bad if you're able to go five sets, four sets, four sets."<\/p>\n

Groth pointed to other players during this year's Australian Open, most notably Grigor Dimitrov who went down to a massive underdog, Djokovic's next opponent Aslan Karatsev.<\/p>\n

"We've seen Casper Ruud pull out, Berrettini as well; Dimitrov struggled through a side strain," Groth said.<\/p>\n

"Five sets is a true test of the physicality, the mental, the tactical. At the moment Novak says he's got an injury but seems to be pulling up just fine over five sets."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former tennis player Sam Groth has joined the chorus of doubters who believe Novak Djokovic overstated his injury status during the tournament. Djokovic last night […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35799"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35801,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35799\/revisions\/35801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}