Unfortunately, Novak Djokovic seems to have less and less friends after the disastrous Adria Tour. The event was canceled after the Coronavirus was caught spreading among the teams and in the community as no social distancing whatsoever was respected. Unfortunately, the Adria Tour debacle sparked an unpleasant and awkward “blame game” as Djokovic father Srdjan unfairly accused Grigor Dimitrov of hurting Serbia, Croatia, and their family. The accusation was strongly rejected by Grigor’s agent.
This “blame game” is extremely unsettling and talking to DerStandard, Dominic Thiem’s agent Herwig Straka slammed Novak Djokovic for both organizing the event and sending them COVID-19 regulations that were not followed.
“I have to mainly blame Djokovic. Okay, there were other parts involved, but he was strongly behind it. Originally there were honorable motives, the focus was on charity. But it went in the wrong direction, [the event] was misused as a show. You have to blame Djokovic for that,” he said.
“In hindsight, it was all dumb, even if it was allowed. Everyone knows it was dumb, no one needs a public apology. The only one who should apologize is Djokovic. He staged the whole thing. The others were only there. They didn’t kill anyone,” he added.
Then Straka added that he was upset for the fact that he got wrong guidelines about the measures that would have been adopted during the Tour.
“In advance, I insisted that we get clear Covid 19 guidelines. It was said that a maximum of 1000 spectators was allowed to come, social distancing was guaranteed. I only released Dominic under these conditions. That was two days before [the event]. They didn’t stick to it, it was annoying to me.”
Dominic Thiem has been playing a couple of exhibitions in France and Austria after the Adria Tour. After his disgraced trip in the Balkans, he has been tested 5 times and the result was always negative. Many want him to auto-isolate, he won’t do it and he might be right.
Dominic Thiem in 2020
Now the world no.3 (career-high), Thiem played his last match on the 22nd of February when he surrendered to Gianluca Mager 7-64 7-5 in the quarter in Rio De Janeiro.
Dominic Thiem’s most significant achievement of the current year was reaching the final at the Australian Open.
Novak Djokovic in 2020
Now ranked no.1, the Serbian played his last match on the 29th of February when he overcame Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3 6-4 in the final in Dubai to win his 79th career title.
During this season the Serbian has a 18-0 win-loss record. Djokovic clinched 2 titles in 2020 at the Australian Open and in Dubai.
Dominic Thiem and Novak Djokovic played each other 11 times. The head to head is 7-4 for Djokovic. The last time that they fought against each other, Novak Djokovic won 6-4 4-6 2-6 6-3 6-4 in the final in Melbourne (Australian Open) on the 2nd of February 2020.
In the following video you can watch the key moments of their match.
Dominic Thiem and Novak Djokovic |
| Embed from Getty Images |
