Novak Djokovic is no stranger to clashing with the crowd, and this happened again at the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters during his match against Lorenzo Musetti.
Italian players get a lot of support at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Monte Carlo. Italy is not too far from Monaco, and many Italians work in the Principality. The crowd backs their players heavily, which was the case with Musetti as he took on the 24-time major winner.
The match opened well for Musetti, who took an early break, though Djokovic would be able to overturn the score and win the opening set. He would win the second set as well to secure a second consecutive win this week.
That hasn’t happened since the Australian Open, so it was an important win for Djokovic. His spectacular tennis probably, at times, was annoying the Italian crowd, who did boo him a couple of times during the match.
During one of their booing sessions, Djokovic opted to mock it by orchestrating the boos. It’s not the first time he has done it, as he did last year at the ATP Finals as well.
There are some interesting similarities between those two instances. Both times it happened was against Italians, first Jannik Sinner and now Musetti. Italy has a long history of classical music, so maybe it’s his go-to method to clash with Italian fans as both times he pulled out, that conducted a move against Italian crowds.
Either way, he smiled throughout the ordeal, clearly enjoying it. This has happened many times before, and he’s quite used to it. He even draws inspiration from it, and it certainly worked this time around as well.
“I didn’t feel so comfortable playing, because I was, you know, dominated by Musetti at that point. And then, you know, I guess it came at the right moment. You know, it’s one of these things that just, in a way, also relaxes you and it’s just, I don’t know, I had a little smile on my face and a little symphony conducting, and, you know, it worked (smiling).”
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