While she wasn’t alarmed by Djokovic’s two losses Down Under, Robson thought that some of his younger competitors were now able to challenge him more. She continued: “It’s not catastrophic in any way to lose to Jannik Sinner at the moment and then again losing to Alex de Minaur at the beginning of the year, you’re not really going to read too much into it. He’s still the best in the world, he’s still winning almost everything.
“It’s just the fact that some of the young guys are coming through and have the confidence now in a best-of-five situation – which maybe they didn’t have before – to really challenge him.” And she jokingly backed Djokovic to keep playing for years, even though he can no longer get away with letting his level slip against players like Sinner.
“So he can’t afford to have quite as many 50 per cent days which I think people mentally just didn’t have the belief against him when he wasn’t playing 100 per cent. When he was having a slightly off day, people weren’t able to take advantage of it,” she explained. “Whereas now they can but for someone his age he’s moving as well as ever and I wouldn’t be too worried about that. I feel like he’s one of those guys, one of those athletes, he could probably play until he’s 55.”
