“It’s really helping” – Sabalenka on Djokovic’s insights

World No 1 Aryna Sabalenka has said that her chats around tennis with 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic have really helped her as she chases her first Wimbledon singles title in London this fortnight.

Sabalenka and Djokovic has become quite friendly in recent weeks as the pair practiced together in London and the Serb crashed into one of the Belarusian’s early press conferences during Wimbledon.

On Sunday, after beating Elise Mertens in straight sets to reach the quarter-finals, when Sabalenka was asked which player had the most insight, knowledge, feel for the sport, she responded with Djokovic’s name.

“I think not like someone I played against, but definitely talking a lot to Novak, like, he definitely has a lot of knowledge of the game. It’s really help me a lot several times. Basically whenever I talk to him, it is really helping me. One of the conversation went to like managing energy. Another one about the mental part of the game. Then we had another conversation about, like, mentally approaching those big finals,” Sabalenka told the media in London.

“I think mostly we’re talking about mental part of the game. I mean, also one time he really help me with
the return. Now he’s always like making fun of me copying his return. I’m like, Man, it’s working. I’m
copying the best. Actually maybe I have to talk to him a bit more about tennis stuff,” Sabalenka concluded.

Both Sabalenka and Djokovic are still in the Wimbledon draw. The Belarusian will play German Laura Siegemund in the quarter-finals on Tuesday while Djokovic will hope to join her in that round when he meets 11th seed Alex de Minaur in a fourth round clash later today.

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