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The tennis world is no stranger to witnessing an agitated Novak Djokovic on the court. Throughout his illustrious career spanning over 20 years, the Serbian tennis star has been involved in numerous tense interactions with fans on the court. However, not just to the fans, the 24-time Grand Slam winner has vented acrimony on his training partner as well.
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Jules Marie Recalls Unpleasant Experience With Novak Djokovic
Describing it is "nasty", fellow tennis star Jules Marie brought forward an instance when Novak Djokovic gave him a hard time with his behavior. The Frenchman, 33, was live on Instagram when he decided to recall sparring Djokovic at the 2021 French Open - which the Serbian superstar went on to win - and admitted Djokovic was consistently "nasty" in the way he acted. "When I was a sparring partner at Roland Garros, I played five times with Djokovic, and he was nasty all five times," Marie stunningly claimed.
"You play on the edge with him. If you hit a ball 1.5m away from him, he doesn’t play it and looks at you like, ‘If you do it again, I'll kick you out’.’ At one point, I served a ball, and he didn't play it. He says to me, 'It's my coach who is supposed to serve.' So his coach serves, I hit the ball back, and he sends the ball 50 metres high. I don't know why (...) Not nice at all."
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Djokovic is Different in Front of the Cameras
Marie further stated that Djokovic's demeanor towards him completely changed in front of the cameras the following year at the Australian Open.
"On the other hand, at the Australian Open, I was no longer a sparring partner; I was a player. So it was different," he said. "And he knew about my YouTube channel. Plus, we were filmed, there were cameras, so he couldn't be nasty."
