"Did not feel that it was affecting me on court": Novak Djokovic on knee trouble

PARIS: Defending champion Novak Djokovic, who delivered a typically resilient display to outlast Francisco Cerundolo in the fourth round of the French Open 2024, revealed that he's been carrying a right knee injury for a few weeks now.

The Serbian appeared to be at his peak form against Francisco Cerundolo after trailing by two sets and a break, but he rallied to win 6-1, 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3.

The Serbian was unsure about the price he would pay for the victory after the five-set thriller, however, the World No. 1 spoke cautiously about his knee injury that he tweaked at the start of the second set in his fourth-round triumph.

"For the last couple weeks I have had slight discomfort, I would call it, in the right knee, but I haven't had an injury that would be concerning me at all. I was playing a few tournaments with it, and had no issues until today," Djokovic said in his post-match press conference as quoted by ATP.

"Of course, [the] late finish from a few nights ago didn't help the sleeping, the biorhythm, and recovery. But I actually felt great coming into the match -- as good as I could under the circumstances -- and played really well first set. Then in the third game of the second set, I slipped, one of the many times that I slipped and fell today. That affected the knee," he added.

The sight of Djokovic rallying from the brink to win an epic five-setter may be a familiar story in the context of the Serbian's stellar career, but there was something special about his preparation leading up to his prolonged victory over Cerundolo. He chose not to practise on his day off after winning his third-round match against Lorenzo Musetti at 3:07 a.m. on Sunday morning, the latest finish in tournament history.

"I played petanque yesterday. That was as hard of an activity as I had yesterday, in Bois de Boulogne with my friends. [It was] just a really easy day. I slept most of that day yesterday and did a lot of physio work and some of the water work as well. Some of the exercises in the water always help reduce the strain on the joints and muscles, and tried to get a decent sleep again, which I did," Djokovic revealed

"[Today] I came to the court, I warmed up well, first set great. I didn't feel that the last match affected me so much that I was unable to run or sustain the level. I played for over four-and-a-half hours. It was longer than the match against Musetti. So physically I'm okay. Thankfully I was able to recover quickly," he added.

Djokovic's next task will be to prepare for his quarterfinal match against Casper Ruud. The top seed hopes his knee recovers as soon as possible before the rematch of last year's Roland Garros final on Wednesday.

"I did carry it with me for a couple of weeks, but I did not feel that it was affecting me on the court. Meaning as soon as I would warm up, I would feel fine. I would run, I would do splits, slides, whatever. It wasn't any kind of an issue when I start to play," Djokovic said of the injury.

"When I was cold, that's where I feel the discomfort. So today, again, we did put an extra care and attention to the knee in the last few days, my physio and I. It's like we predicted something might happen, so that helped, but I don't know. Today is just one of these things when you're on the court, you slip, do a bad move, you're in an unstable, unbalanced position. I guess that's probably a weaker part of my body that has had some few weeks of history, I guess that reacted. That's all I know for now," he added.