"You have just got to question that a little bit": Coco Vandeweghe questions Novak Djokovic's mentality after back-to-back first-round defeats

Former women’s world number nine Coco Vandeweghe believes that Serbia’s legendary tennis star Novak Djokovic is not as mentally as he used to be in the past. 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.

Djokovic has been going through a lean patch in the recent past. The former world number one has not won a single ATP competition since the start of 2024. This season, he featured in three competitions, and on two occasions, he was knocked out from the first round. The most recent of those instances came while playing at the Indian Wells, where he lost to the Netherlands’ Botic van de Zandschulp with a score of 6-2, 3-6, 6-1.

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Before that, Djokovic suffered a defeat in the first round of the Qatar Open to Italy’s Matteo Berrettini in straight sets with a score of 7-6, 6-2. Former women’s world number nine Vandeweghe has been recently quoted in a report by Tennis 365 where she highlighted that, in her opinion, the Belgrade-born star has lost some of his mental toughness in the recent past.

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“We have to give Botic some credit, he showed up, he played big ball and you have to give the man credit where credit is due,” she said. “But I do think is this Novak getting too comfortable with ‘I’m okay with losing’. It’s a weird feeling as a player when you have a couple of losses like that where you see him in the press room and he is a little bit too smiley and you have to think ‘Is he not as mentally tough as he once was?’ You have just got to question that a little bit. I still think you can’t count out the GOAT in any tournament, in any situation, but I do question are we getting a little bit too comfortable with these guys beating you in these 1000 events. We know Novak is looking at Slams and are we getting a little too comfortable and maybe that will happen at Slams.”

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