THE CHAMPIONSHIPS

July 7, 2025

Novak Djokovic

Press Conference

N. DJOKOVIC/A. de Minaur

1-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. You had Roger in the Royal Box today. Did you have a chance to catch up with him after the match and discuss the margaritas you were talking about on the beach?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: We did catch up very shortly, yeah. We greeted each other. He congratulated me and said it was a great match. That's all. It was a very short greeting, but it was really nice to have him around.

Obviously he's one of the greatest legends of our game in the history of tennis. So it always is extra special when he's on the stands. I'm glad to break the curse and win in front of him. It's a big relief (smiling).

Q. Your son was wearing one of your white hats covered in player autographs. Are you helping him get those, and who has he got?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Actually most of them. It was himself independently of me approaching and asking for autographs. I think I might have asked only Jannik or someone, but everyone else he's approached. He even got a chance to play with Cobolli, my next opponent. They hit a few days ago. They played some points.

He's over the moon. Obviously, he loves tennis. Yeah, he has everyone's signature, except mine. But that's okay, I'll accept that (smiling).

Q. Obviously a very close match. How concerned were you in the middle of it? At what point did you think you felt like you had it?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: It wasn't a great start for me. He was solid, as I expected him to be. But the windy, swirly conditions on the court, they were quite extreme today, to be honest, comparing to any other day that we had so far in the tournament. Was very challenging for me.

I started two double-faults, lost a break of serve first game. I was not feeling good, not finding the right timing. He was obviously feeling that. He was exposing my game, exposing my weaknesses, trying to mix things up, and returning extremely well.

I wasn't getting as many free points off the first serve as I was in my first three rounds, so that made it even more difficult. I had to work hard for my service games, particularly from that end where it's against the wind.

I think he's one of the toughest opponents you can have on this kind of given day conditions where it's very windy. He's so quick, constantly puts pressure on you, constantly makes you play. He's also very, very smart player. On the grass, he knows how to use the slice and the angles.

It was a big challenge. Honestly big, big relief to finish the match in four sets. The way the fourth started, it was much closer to getting into a fifth than finishing it off, to be honest. I went into kind of full lock-in mode. I think the last three games I dropped only one point. I finally was able to kind of do what I wanted to do and swing through the ball.

It was very challenging, honestly. Credit to him for making me feel very uncomfortable on the court. Yeah, just fortunate to get through this one.

Q. What are your thoughts on your next opponent? Will you be taking any tips from your son?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Of course, I'll have a conversation with my son and see what he has noticed in the game of Cobolli the other day (smiling).

No, jokes aside, of course, he's a very talented player. One of the youngsters coming up. He's one of those players that he's young and new names coming up that we are probably going to see quite a bit in the future.

I must say that pleasantly surprised with his result on grass because he doesn't strike me as a grass court specialist with his game, but he reached the quarterfinals. He's beaten Cilic and some big servers and big players that are grass court specialists, so to say. So huge credit to him.

He's a big fighter. We get along well. We practice whenever we can. We just had a hug. We embraced each other after the match. Actually we saw each other on the terrace.

Let the better player win. What can I say? It's quarterfinals now. I definitely need to work on my game and start the match in quarters better than I did today. I wasn't very happy with the performance, particularly in the first part of the match.

Yeah, I need to improve that in order to have a best chance to proceed.

Q. Sorry to ask a boring Hawk-Eye question. I spoke to Cilic earlier today. He said he thinks one of his own serves was that far out, but play went on. There was an error yesterday on Centre. Do you have full faith in this new system?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: Yeah, I actually seen the mistake from Pavlyuchenkova match yesterday. It was really bad, really bad mistake. It was a system error, obviously.

Yeah, I guess since we made the introduction of this technology for the line calling, I guess you have to heavily rely on the technology. I'm not sure if the rule is that you can, as a chair umpire, overrule something if you see it. I probably would think that's not the case.

I think that technology's probably more accurate and making less mistakes than, I guess, a lines person. But yeah, you're going to have this kind of particular instances where you're going to have a system failure and then it happens in an awkward time of the match, like yesterday in her match. That's not good.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't feel in my matches so far I had some really bad calls from the system, to be honest. I don't have any complaints in that regard.

Q. Your former coach Goran Ivanisevic says you are the only one capable of beating Sinner and Alcaraz in majors and that you're the favorite to win here. Do you agree?

NOVAK DJOKOVIC: I love Goran, and I'm happy he loves me back, but I don't think I'm a favorite against these guys at the moment. I think they are, both of them.

But I do probably have my best chance here against them here probably, yeah. If it comes down to me facing one of them or two of them, which I hope so, it means I would proceed tattoo finals all the way, then yeah, I'll obviously look for my best game to win.

I think I do have a chance. There's no doubt about it. I think my results on grass even in the previous years are a testament to my confidence on this surface. I've been playing some really good tennis this year. So I feel good about myself. I feel confident. I feel motivated to go all the way. Let's see what happens.