‘I’m a human being so I tend to lose my cool. At times I’m ashamed of it,’ admits Novak Djokovic

ATP Tour
Novak Djokovic interview

He accepts that he is a flawed human being and is not proud of some of his on-court tantrums, but Novak Djokovic insists it is important that you “accept your flaws”.

The world No 1 lost his cool during his rain-affected second-round match against Taylor Fritz at the Italian Open this week as he screamed at chair umpire Nacho Forcadell: “How much more you wanna play?”

Novak Djokovic loses his cool in the rain and angrily asks umpire ‘How much more you wanna play?’

Play was eventually suspended and after the match was completed Djokovic apologised to the official.

Asked by Prakash Amritraj during a Tennis Channel interview about losing his cool, the 18-time Grand Slam winner replied: “I can easily lose that class, you know, as you can see on the court, you know. I get frustrated. I don’t want to say I get frustrated easy, but you know I do have emotions like anybody else.

“I’m a human being so I tend to lose my cool. I’m not proud of that. At times of course I’m ashamed of it. And I don’t have any issue to say I’m sorry and apologise.

“It was not necessary and it was not nice of me to scream at the umpire the other day so I thought the least I could do is apologise and ask for forgiveness and that is what I have done.”

He joked: “I don’t know if he forgave me. He didn’t look so great when I told him that.

“You have to move on and at the end of the day, accept your flaws. I’m flawed as anybody else.

“As I said, I don’t want to intentionally do these things, but it is important that when you do this you forgive yourself first and then learn lessons.”

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