Novak Djokovic confessed he was ‘surprised’ by Rafael Nadal’s extraordinary level as he was humbled in the final of the French Open.
Djokovic, the world No. 1 from Serbia, was well beaten in a 6-0 6-2 7-5 loss by the ‘King of Clay’ in two hours and 41 minutes and admitted Nadal was near-‘perfect’ in the one-sided win.
And despite this being Nadal’s 13th win on the clay courts of Roland Garros, Djokovic admitted he was stunned at just how ‘phenomenally’ well the world No. 2 was playing.
‘Well, I don’t have much to say but that I was completely overplayed by Rafa, by better player on the court,’ Djokovic said in his post-match press conference.
‘I mean, he was not missing at all and getting every ball back, just playing tactically great.
‘I felt well throughout the entire tournament. I thought I was in a great form. Certainly I could have played better, especially in the first two sets.
‘But, you know, just he did surprise me with the way he was playing, the quality of tennis he was producing, the level. I mean, he’s phenomenal. He played a perfect match, especially in the first two sets.
Yeah, I mean, the third set I managed to come back. I kind of found my groove on the court. Then, yeah, couple of close games. Had my chance, didn’t use them. He closed out the match. That’s it.
‘He was the far better player on the court today and absolutely deserved to win.’
Djokovic persistently used the drop-shot, with varying degrees of success, to try and unsettle Nadal and he admitted he may have got his tactics wrong.
‘I mean, yeah, it didn’t work great today, let’s say,’ said Djokovic.
‘He was winning a lot of those drop-shot points that were played by my side. I mean, I didn’t play so many in the end of the day. I did try tactically different things, but not much worked in the first two sets.
‘Yeah, I wanted to kind of disrupt his rhythm, obviously. But he was ready. He was there, he was prepared. He was playing all the right shots today.
‘It’s just one of these days where you have to just say, Chapeau, and well done.’
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