Each week on the ATP Tour, players prepare for their matches with their personal coaches. But the ATP Cup is a team competition, and World No. 2 Novak Djokovic revealed how having the ability to huddle up with countrymen makes the tournament different.
“We do get together and speak in the hotel before our matches every day, and each one of us shares his thoughts on maybe the opponent that he's going to have or for the other guys' match or doubles or whatever it is,” said Djokovic. “It's quite, I think, open in terms of everyone really having an opportunity to share what they feel like, maybe some advice or things that they have noticed, their observations.”
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One of the positives that Djokovic noted about the ATP Cup is that each country’s Team Zone is right on the court, so he could interact with his fellow Serbians throughout the match. While Nenad Zimonjic is the Serbian captain, every player could share their thoughts with whoever is playing. On Friday, Viktor Troicki was doing just that for Djokovic.
“They are literally behind you,” Djokovic said. “So you get to interact and talk and ask them about things that they see that you can't really see, what you're doing right or wrong or what the opponent and the other player on the court is doing.”
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The group element could present the potential for too much information. So while Djokovic said that he and his teammates happily swap ideas about an opponent, they don’t go overboard.
“Everyone is slightly different, so you don't want to interfere with someone's routine,” Djokovic said. “Someone likes to talk more, someone likes to talk less, someone doesn't like to talk at all. So we all respect each other's trajectories in a way in preparation, and so far it's been working well.”
Most players remaining in Sydney have their personal coaches with them. So while former World No. 1 Marat Safin says that he does not overstep, he is happy to give his opinion to those coaches to get on the same page and potentially deliver those messages to the players.
“We match with the coaches. We are talking about same things,” Safin said. “But they might say [it] with the different words. So it can get closer to the center of attention in some moments. Mainly it's the same things. It might be fresh words”.
