Goran Ivanisevic made the honest admission that he got sick of
Novak Djokovic and the feeling was mutual towards the end as their coaching relationship ended recently after six years.
Ivanisevic was a huge part of Djokovic's success in recent years, but it seems like their partnership ran its course with the duo splitting after the Serbian's loss to Luca Nardi at Indian Wells. Since then, he has been trained by Nenad Zimonjic who got the seal of approval from Ivanisevic.
The former World No.1 doubles player is seemingly only involved temporarily, but with Monte-Carlo on the horizon, it could be more permanent very soon.
"I mean, there isn’t really a “real” reason (for the split). One reason is indeed a sense of saturation/fatigue, this really was a difficult and intense five years," he told Sport Klub as translated by Tennis Majors. "People forget that period during the coronavirus. They forget that he was at one moment labelled as the greatest villain on the planet because of his vaccination status. I mean, we were always in some sort of limbo."
In happier times: Goran Ivanisevic enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Novak Djokovic.
"So yes, we reached a certain level of saturation, as I like to say: 'material fatigue,' he continued. "Basically I became tired of him, he became tired of me; in any case I didn’t feel like I could help him anymore. I first noticed the feeling, if I’m being completely honest, last year in America. I won’t say as far back as Wimbledon, but that Wimbledon, of course the player is always most affected, but as a coach that loss really hit hard."
"Of course, all congratulations to Alcaraz, at the end of the day. He was the better player, but one or two points here and there, it could have easily turned out different, I won’t go into it now.
"It was only a question of whether that would be at the end of the year, or at some point in this year (2024)," he continued. "Maybe in hindsight you could say it should have been at the end of last year but after the US Open, I had that operation on my knee, I wasn’t there for Paris Bercy, Turin came after that."