ROME \u2014 Novak Djokovic slumped to an early elimination from the Italian Open on Friday, crumbling to a second-round defeat at the hands of qualifier Dino Prizmic which leaves question marks about his physical condition ahead of Roland Garros.<\/p>\n
Tennis icon Djokovic was sent packing by big-hitting Croatian Prizmic, who claimed the biggest scalp of his young career with a stunning 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 win on centre court in Rome.<\/p>\n
Djokovic, a 24-time Grand Slam winner, was making his comeback from a shoulder injury in the last big tournament before the French Open, which starts later this month.<\/p>\n
And the world No. 4 was unsure as to whether he would be back to his best for the clay-court Grand Slam, simply saying \u201cI hope so\u201d when asked by reporters whether Paris would see the all-conquering \u201cNole\u201d of old.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s see what happens,\u201d said Djokovic, who lamented persistent physical problems in the twilight of his stellar career.<\/p>\n
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By signing up with an email address, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the Terms of Service<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t recall the last time in the last couple of years of preparation where I didn\u2019t have any physical issues coming into a tournament,\u201d said Djokovic.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always something, it\u2019s kind of a new reality that I have to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic wore shoulder strappings in his first tournament since losing in the last 16 at Indian Wells in March, after pulling out of tournaments in Miami, Monte Carlo and Madrid.<\/p>\n He hadn\u2019t previously been knocked out this early in a tournament since the Madrid Open last year, and he looked a long way from the player who has won six titles at the Foro Italico.<\/p>\n He breezed into a one-set lead but then buckled under the weight of Prizmic\u2019s powerful hitting which has led to the 20-year-old rising to a career-high world ranking of 79.<\/p>\n Prizmic has beaten two top 10 players in a matter of weeks with sixth-ranked Ben Shelton succumbing in the second round in Madrid last month.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROME \u2014 Novak Djokovic slumped to an early elimination from the Italian Open on Friday, crumbling to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7934,9964,10622,10619,10617,682,9027,5159,5158,5,15,10620,9028,27,10623,10618,3869,103,10621],"class_list":{"0":"post-14496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-ben-shelton","10":"tag-career-high","11":"tag-clay-court","12":"tag-dino-prizmic","13":"tag-foro-italico","14":"tag-french-open","15":"tag-grand-slam","16":"tag-italian-open","17":"tag-italy","18":"tag-novak-djokovic","19":"tag-physical-condition","20":"tag-roland-garros","21":"tag-rome","22":"tag-second-round","23":"tag-shoulder-injury","24":"tag-sports-news","25":"tag-tennis","26":"tag-world-ranking"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}