"Not nice at all": Novak Djokovic accused of 'nasty' behaviour by French tennis player

Former world number one Serbia’s Novak Djokovic has been called out for his ‘nasty’ behaviour. The 37-year-old is regarded as the greatest player in the history of men’s tennis in the singles category, having won as many as 24 Grand Slam titles.

French player Jules Marie, who has a YouTube channel and has more than 100 thousand, has recently confessed in a post on the social media platform Instagram as quoted by Daily Mirror where he alleged Djokovic of having a ‘nasty’ behaviour.

"When I was a sparring partner at Roland Garros, I played five times with Djokovic, and he was nasty all five times," said Marie. "You play on the edge with him. If you hit a ball 1.5m away from him, he doesn’t play it and looks at you like, ‘if you do it again, I'll kick you out’. At one point, I served a ball, and he didn't play it. He says to me, 'it's my coach who is supposed to serve'. So his coach serves, I hit the ball back, and he sends the ball 50 metres high. I don't know why... not nice at all. On the other hand, at the Australian Open, I was no longer a sparring partner; I was a player. So it was different. And he knew about my YouTube channel. Plus, we were filmed, there were cameras, so he couldn't be nasty."

Djokovic has been going through a lean patch in the recent past where he has suffered early round exits. His most recent outing was at the Indian Wells where he was knocked out after losing in the round of 64 to Netherlands’ Botic van de Zandschulp with a score of 6-2, 3-6, 6-1. Earlier in the Qatar Open, he was knocked out after losing to Italy’s Matteo Berrettini in straight sets with a score of 7-6, 6-2.