Nine-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic reportedly cut short a practice match against Daniil Medvedev yesterday because of a left hamstring issue, five days before the Grand Slam.
The Serbian superstar is back in Melbourne after his deportation last year but required treatment and then ended the knock-about with the Russian after losing the first set.
The session at Melbourne Park was supposed to last 75 minutes but was instead curtailed after just over half an hour as a precaution, the ABC and 9News Melbourne reported.
“It’s the hamstring that I had problems with in Adelaide last week,” Djokovic said, according to 9News. “I just felt it pulling and I didn’t want to risk anything worse. I played a set and apologised to him (Medvedev) and he was understanding.
“I just want to avoid any bigger scares before the Australian Open,” he said.
Djokovic, who won the Adelaide crown on Sunday despite the lingering hamstring issue, is hot favourite to triumph in Melbourne once again.
The 35-year-old is supposed to play Nick Kyrgios in a re-run of last year’s Wimbledon final tomorrow in front of a full house at Rod Laver Arena in another practice match.
Djokovic, one of the finest men’s tennis players of all time with 21 major crowns, was deported from Australia a year ago over his stance on Covid vaccines.

Djokovic, Jabeur on committee of controversial tennis players body
Novak Djokovic and women’s world number two Ons Jabeur were named yesterday on the first executive committee of the controversial Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA).
Serbia’s Djokovic, the former men’s number one, was instrumental in the creation of the PTPA, having quit as president of the ATP Player Council in 2020 to launch the breakaway organisation.
The ATP runs men’s tennis. The PTPA is independent of the ATP and its women’s equivalent, the WTA, and says it wants to give players a greater voice in the sport.
Six other players were also named on the executive committee, or leadership body: Paula Badosa, Hubert Hurkacz, John Isner, Bethanie Mattek-Sands, Vasek Pospisil and Zheng Saisai.
The committee is “centered on advancing player rights, growing and improving the business of tennis”, the PTPA said in a statement from Melbourne, ahead of next week’s Australian Open.
Speaking in Adelaide last week, Djokovic said: “When it comes to PTPA, a player organisation that is 100 percent devoted to players, we don’t have anything like that in tennis.”
The 35-year-old, one of the most successful men’s players of all time, admitted that “we were not accepted and embraced by Grand Slams, ATP nor WTA, so it makes things difficult for us”.
“But this association needs to live,” he said.
“It needs to be there because players don’t have 100 percent representation in the tennis world, unfortunately.”