For nearly two years, 12-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic has floundered, suffering massive setbacks time and time again to his injured right elbow.
Djokovic fired his longtime coach Marian Vajda in favor of a part-time partnership with Andre Agassi, and later Radek Stepanek, as he searched for ways to pull out of his tailspin.
He took five months away from tennis last year in an attempt to recover but ended up getting surgery earlier this year when he was still hurt after the Australian Open. Then he ended his working relationship with Agassi and Stepanek in April, opting to return to Vajda.
Now, Agassi is speaking about Djokovic’s injury for the first time since splitting with Djokovic in April. The tennis great revealed in an interview with Metro UK that he wanted Djokovic to undergo the surgery months earlier so he’d be ready for the Australian Open.
“We met in August and got the best doctors in the world together to meet him in Toronto — it was my strong opinion that he should have surgery in August so we would be way ready for Australia,” Agassi told Metro. “You know, he had strong feelings about healing holistically and had feelings about how his body could handle it. He was ended being forced into a different decision in late January.
“There were just a lot of decisions that were procrastinating a real conviction of approach.”
Djokovic returned in March but struggled then too, falling out of Indian Wells and the Miami Open without winning a round. He has only recently regained some of his old form in the French Open, where he reached the quarterfinals.
The No. 12 seed at Wimbledon, Djokovic won his first-round match 6-3, 6-1, 6-0 against American Tennys Sandgren on Tuesday.
Agassi, who worked with Djokovic for free, told the Telegraph in a follow-up interview Tuesday that he’d be open to teaming up with Djokovic again in the future. His relationship with Djokovic was his first attempt at coaching.
“My first steps into coaching were challenging, interesting and educational. It was an awakening,” Agassi said. “When I played I never felt pressure but a lot of stress. As a coach I never felt stress but a lot of pressure so that was an interesting difference. As a coach you have to make sure you’re saying the right thing at the right time or not saying the wrong thing at the wrong time — there was a lot of pressure to it.”
Agassi’s troubled past relationship with his own coach, Nick Bollitieri, has also been in the spotlight recently. The Showtime documentary “Love Means Zero,” which aired last week, portrays a harsh relationship between player and coach that ended abruptly in 1993.
Whether he has another chance with Djokovic or not, Agassi is optimistic about the Serbian’s future and expects him to return to the top of the game once he’s healthy again.
“His elbow wasn’t allowing him to progress but now if he’s healthy his body is 31 going on 25,” he told the paper. “I see an easy five more years in him assuming that there’s no curves with the elbow. From a physical perspective, he still moves beautifully.”
