{"id":212520,"date":"2025-09-09T09:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212520\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T09:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:59:09","slug":"novak-djokovic-going-deep-by-ben-rothenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/212520\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic, Going Deep &#8211; by Ben Rothenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>[On a train home from] NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2014 As I mentioned at the end of my last bounce, my intended programming schedule for the end stages of the 2025 U.S. Open were upended, understandably, by the breaking news reporting I could do here at Bounces covering Donald Trump\u2019s disruptive trip to the men\u2019s final, on both his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/donald-trump-us-open-sinner-alcaraz-2025-rolex-suite\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">invitation to the Rolex suite<\/a> and also about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/us-open-donald-trump-mens-final-attendance-visit-appearance-censorship-tv-booing-protest-jannik-sinner-carlos-alcaraz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the USTA\u2019s request to broadcasters to censor<\/a> reactions to Trump from those in attendance.<\/p>\n<p>I have no regrets about doing those stories\u2014and thanks to the many of you who read, shared, and linked to them to <a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@benrothenberg\/note\/c-153454082?\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">help shatter <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@benrothenberg\/note\/c-153454082?\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bounces<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@benrothenberg\/note\/c-153454082?\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> web traffic numbers over the weekend<\/a>\u2014but it does mean that some of the other ripening story bananas in my Bounces banana basket have turned browner than they otherwise would have as time passed by.<\/p>\n<p>But personally, I enjoy a speckled dark yellow banana, and I think this one is a nice sweet treat: for the third consecutive major, I enlisted the help of a Serbian translator to illuminate and elucidate the mind of Novak Djokovic. <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!7OS_!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc946755e-f117-48ec-a64a-03d479eff9ee_6474x4316.jpeg\" data-component-name=\"Image2ToDOM\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"image-link image2 is-viewable-img\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/c946755e-f117-48ec-a64a-03d479eff9ee_6474.jpeg\" width=\"1456\" height=\"971\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/c946755e-f117-48ec-a64a-03d479eff9ee_6474x4316.jpeg&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:971,&quot;width&quot;:1456,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:10041877,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/jpeg&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:false,&quot;topImage&quot;:true,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/i\/173129267?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc946755e-f117-48ec-a64a-03d479eff9ee_6474x4316.jpeg&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null,&quot;offset&quot;:false}\" alt=\"\"   fetchpriority=\"high\" class=\"sizing-normal\"\/><\/a>Novak Djokovic at the 2025 U.S. Open (Photo by Regina Cortina)<\/p>\n<p>The 38-year-old has been one of the most compelling and enigmatic stories in men\u2019s tennis in 2025, finding himself both consistently close but disappointingly distant to an elusive 25th major title, stuck behind the dominant Sinner-Alcaraz duopoly. Djokovic made four major semifinals this year\u2014an amazing record for a player of any age\u2014but won zero sets in those four appearances, which would be a difficult pattern for any player to digest.<\/p>\n<p>Previous translations here of his press conferences after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/novak-djokovic-retirement-french-open-roland-garros-retiring-plans-age-jannik-sinner-serena-williams?utm_source=publication-search\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Roland Garros<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/p\/wimbledon-novak-djokovic-interview-press-conference-serbian-english-injury-retirement-carlos-alcaraz-jannik-sinner?utm_source=publication-search\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wimbledon<\/a> both proved popular with Bounces subscribers, which I was glad to see as a return for this investment, and I\u2019m hoping this one will resonate as well.<\/p>\n<p>So below for Bounces subscribers, I have a new full transcript, again professionally translated to English, of the Serbian portion of Djokovic\u2019s press conference after his U.S. Open semifinal loss to Carlos Alcaraz on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>This was a much longer press conference for Djokovic than the previous two translated here. In it, he discussed a range of topics including his plans for the future, his appraisal of this season, which major semifinal he felt closest to winning this year, how it feels to be getting more crowd support than ever before from previously unsympathetic crowds, and the pieces of specific advice he got from a WTA legend on the practice courts.<\/p>\n<p>Also, if you have nominations for other players you might like to see featured in similar translation features in the future\u2014from any language\u2014please let me know in the comments below! <\/p>\n<p><strong>Thanks for reading and subscribing to <\/strong><strong>Bounces<\/strong><strong>! -Ben<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?&amp;gift=true&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Give a gift subscription&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?&amp;gift=true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"button primary\" target=\"_blank\">Give a gift subscription<\/a><\/p>\n<p data-attrs=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?group=true&amp;coupon=e328333c&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Get 20% off a group subscription&quot;,&quot;action&quot;:null,&quot;class&quot;:null}\" data-component-name=\"ButtonCreateButton\" class=\"button-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.benrothenberg.com\/subscribe?group=true&amp;coupon=e328333c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"button primary\" target=\"_blank\">Get 20% off a group subscription<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[On a train home from] NEW YORK \u2014 As I mentioned at the end of my last bounce,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":212521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[62,1464,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-212520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115173757107994299","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}