"The media has not been very nice to me because there is an agenda; I have to deal with it and do what I do best" - says Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic admitted in an interview following his Tel Aviv Open that it was difficult to handle media scrutiny this year.

The Serbian faced a lot of scrutiny for different things but the bulk of it came after Djokovic refused to take the vaccine even going so far as to miss event not to have to do it. He played very few events this year due to that missing the Australian Open and the US Open and speaking after winning a trophy in Tel Aviv:

"I stay true to my values and to things that I believe in and I believe in freedom of choice and I believe that everyone should have possibility to choose what they would to do their bodies, so I made my decision. That meant that I am not going to two Grand Slams and that's fine you know. It is what it is. I will take the consequence of that but I will stay true to what I believe in."

He added:

"On the other hand you know that the spotlight that you mentioned unfortunately this year it created a lot of negative spotlight and the media has not been very nice to me, but I kind of expected it because the media is not always so nice when there is an agenda in terms of strategy. So I have to just deal with it and swallow it, and go out on the court and do what I do best, and that's playing tennis."