Novak Djokovic: Failure was never option for me

• Tennis News
• Novak Djokovic

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic gave credit to Denis Kudla for the performance he put up during their Wimbledon clash. Djokovic, seeded at No. 1, managed to overcome Kudla in straight sets 6-4 6-3 7-6 (7) and reach the Wimbledon round-of-16.

"Giving up is never a question. You're always trying to give your maximum out there. Especially when you're playing one of the biggest tennis tournaments out there. For me, the biggest. I have to give credit for Denis for playing really well.

He's a great guy," Djokovic said, per George Bellshaw. Djokovic is one of the most accomplished players in tennis history and he underlined that failure was never an optin for him. "Failure was never an option for me or anyone in my family.

We needed to find the basic needs to survive. That's strengthened my character. I spent a lot of time in the mountains with the wolves, this is my wolf energy. I'm not kidding, actually," Djokovic claimed.

Kudla couldn't stun Djokovic

Before the match, Kudla said his goal was to upset Djokovic.

“You need to go in playing these guys with all the belief in the world, execute my game plan,” Kudla said. “I need to play my ‘A’ game to beat him and the only way I’m going to do that is if I let it go, play free and believe”.

Two years ago, Djokovic also beat Kudla at Wimbledon. “Obviously Novak being tough as nails, I just didn’t settle at all. I was down 5-0 in about 10 minutes and I thought my worst nightmare was going to happen,” Kudla said.

“Then at the [US] Open when I played him [later in 2019], I really settled. I was able to kind of push him a little bit more. But now going into this third match, I know what to expect. I know I’m capable of winning certain patterns if I execute in certain ways”.