'I can’t believe people are pointing...' - Paul McNamee defends Novak Djokovic's injury in quarter-finals vs Carlos Alcaraz

Over the past couple of days, the tennis fraternity, including fans, analysts, and insiders, have been talking a lot about Novak Djokovic's injury at the 2025 Australian Open. The Serbian ace seemed very close to his retirement during his quarter-final game against Carlos Alcaraz, and he himself admitted that if he had also lost the second set, he might have retired from the game.

The 24-time Grand Slam champion found the strength to prevail in the four sets of the game, significantly raising his level to the second part of the match. The Serbian legend turned the odds around the tables and made it to his 50th Grand Slam semifinals, as well as giving the whole world a clear demonstration of his greatness. Despite this, Novak Djokovic has faced strong backlash for faking his injury in order to disturb the winning momentum of 21-year-old Carlos Alcaraz.

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Carlos Alcaraz grabs his leg after losing the set to Djokovic at Australian Open

“He’s kind of limping around. Then he gets up & does it again. Limping around & sitting down. He’s obviously fine. Just acting like he’s got an injury”

“He’s being Novak.”

pic.twitter.com/maX3mDKPfa

— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) January 21, 2025

I can’t believe people are pointing to Novak when Jannik did that the day before: Paul McNamee

In the recent interview with The Age, former Australian Open director Paul McNamee admitted that he was extremely stunned and shocked by the backlash against Djokovic after the Italian Jannik Sinner had done the same thing the previous day. Notably, Sinner had suffered an illness, and his hands were trembling during his game against Holger Rune.

looks like sinner is having withdrawals, typically seen in drug users pic.twitter.com/cvunmwigtm

— vrsaljak🇭🇷 (@vrsaljak) January 20, 2025

“I can’t believe people are pointing to Novak when Jannik did that the day before. I mean that 11 and a half minutes medical time out – give me a break. I’m not a big fan of medical timeouts, I’ve got to say. Unless there’s a modesty issue, I think it should happen on court. And you’ve got three minutes, and that’s it. I don’t think it’s fair to the opponent to stop a match for 10 minutes, even five minutes. It’s meant to be three minutes and it should be policed strictly," Paul McNamee said.

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