Sport / Sports
Novak bi iz Dubaija trebalo da otputuje u Australiju, gde bi i dočekao Novu godinu / Novak is expected to head straight from Dubai to Australia, where he should also welcome the New Year an Open – a 250 series tournament that’s owned by the Đoković family. The competition has been relocated to Bosnia’s Republika Srpska to ena- ble Belgrade’s TC “Novak” courts to be renovated in readiness to make a great return in 2024, when the tour- nament should also receive 500 se- ries ranking. Next come the ATP Masters tour- naments in Madrid (24 th April to 1 st May) and Rome (8 th to 15 th May), where Novak will be defending his title, while this period of the season peaks with the French Open at Ro- land-Garros (29 th May to 5 th June). Đoković lost in the quarterfinal of the 2022 tournament in Paris, with Ra- fael Nadal proving better on the day. It is still too early to discuss the second part of the season, i.e., the tournaments held between June and the end of 2023. Novak’s priorities will clearly include Wimbledon, where he will return as defending champion, and the U.S. Open, where he didn’t compete in 2022, as well as ATP Mas- ters tournaments in Toronto, Cincin- nati and Paris. It is also not yet known what will happen with the major tour- naments in Shanghai, Beijing and To- kyo, which were again cancelled this year following the emergence of new problems with the coronavirus pan- demic in that part of Asia.
ger-Aliassime, Gaël Monfils and many others from the upper echelons of the ATP and WTA lists. Novak is expected to head straight from Dubai to Australia, where he should also welcome the New Year. The country’s epidemiolog- ical measures have eased compared to 2022, and now even the unvac- cinated are able to enter. Đoković’s only problem now is the administra- tive ban that means Australia is offi- cially closed to him until mid-Janu- ary 2025. Specifically, his deportation early this year resulted in the auto- matic imposing of a three-year ban on entering the country. According to the director of the Grand Slam in Melbourne, Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley, “we are working to can- cel the ban” because Australia once again wants to see all the best ten- nis players. If everything goes as well as pos- sible, it is assumed that Novak will compete in the Adelaide Internation- al 250 series tournament, which is played over two periods – from 2 nd and 9 th January – prior to launching his assault on his tenth Australian Open crown. The first Grand Slam of 2023 will be held from 16 th to 30 th January, and Đoković holds the tour- nament record with nine titles. Our top tennis player has yet to
announce his plans for next season, so we can only guess as to his move- ments. Following last year’s problems in Australia, he opened the 2022 sea- son at the ATP tournament in Du- bai, which in 2023 will be held from 27 th February. However, provided the U.S. eases its epidemiological meas- ures, Novak is expected to compete in Indian Wells on 6 th March and in Miami on 20 th March. Those are two Masters tournaments that he likes to play in and, of course, win, and that he was unable to compete in during 2022. Apart from winning new tro- phies and prize money, these tour- naments will also give him an oppor- tunity to win a total of 2,000 points, equivalent to the Australian Open. All that would be enough for him to return to the top rankings of the ATP list, and perhaps even restore his deserved place on the throne of world tennis. The clay tournament season gets underway on 10 th April in Mon- te Carlo, on courts located not far from Novak's house. He was already eliminated at the start of this year’s tournament, so next year he will al- so be able to pick up a “wealth” of points in the principality. The only certainty for now is that we will see him in Banja Luka from 17 th April, which is set to host the 2023 Serbi-
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