Djokovic in high hopes over upcoming clay tournaments

Novak Djokovic, former number one tennis player, revealed on Wednesday that he has high hopes from the continuation of the clay season and that now he is fully recovered from elbow surgery and trains hard to return to the top.

Djokovic, currently 12th in the ATP rankings with 2,200 points, held an open training attended by journalists at his tennis academy here and afterwards talked about his motivation and plans for the rest of the season as well as his further career, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Since the tournament in Miami I can play without feeling any pain, so this is a great news, because before that I had a hard time to play under pain. Now, everything comes down to the improvement of my shape.

"Marjan Vajda and Phil Grich are back in the team, and I am very happy to have them, because they know me and my style of play very well, and I believe that everything will fall into the right place. I hope to achieve better results in the upcoming weeks," Djokovic said.

He explained that he was at first against surgery as the solution to his elbow injury and that the team persuaded him that this was the best long-term solution. After that he made a mistake of returning to the tennis court too early.

"This was a mistake, because I was not physically prepared, so this cost me. After that, things started to improve for the better, especially when it comes to the tournaments played on clay court. I agree that the results in Barcelona and Monte Carlo are not the ones I am hoping to achieve, nor the ones that my fans hope for and expect. But, this is a process, and I am getting used to it," Djokovic admitted.

He continued that his team currently has plans for the three upcoming tournaments ending with the Roland Garros and that he "believes in himself", although he admitted that he needs to get his confidence back with "several good games or one good tournament".

He did not wish to comment on speculations that the changes in his diet are the true reason of his under-performance.

Djokovic said that the press inverted a lot of his statements in the past, so he would rather keep this for himself, and do what he "finds right for him as a person and a tennis player".

--IANS

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