By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_now | Friday, June 13, 2025
Photo Credit: Stephane Cardinal/Corbis/Getty
Big 4 champions stayed on the shoulder to shoulder in a annoying and powerful tribute ceremony Roland Garros Rafa Nadal last month.
, Grand Slam King Novak Djokovic IS opening the curtain in his relationship with his Big 4 Championson friends.
In a new interview with SlaveThe big champion 24 times Djokovic says that while he respects all his rivals, he has always been better dealing with King of Clay Rafael Nadal than with Roger Feder. Gjokovic said from his point of view their historical battles were professional challenges – not personal resentment.
“Just because someone is my biggest rival does not mean I wish them harm, I hate them or want to do anything else in court to defeat them,” Gjokovic said. “We fought for the victory, and the best player won …
“I’ve never said a single bad word to them and never would. I looked at them and still do, but I always got better with Nadal.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiowgnv4lzw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rity2wlwk6c
Accepting “I was never as loving as Federer and Nadal”, Gjokovic said some fans watched him as an intruder in Roger-Rafa rivalry and said the fans’ antipathy made him feel “like an unwanted child”.
“I acted and still felt like an unwanted child,” Gjokovic said. “I wondered why it was this. He hurt me.
“Then I thought the fans would accept me if I were to do differently, but it wasn’t that.
“I was never as loving as Federer and Nadal because I didn’t have to be there. I was the little boy, the third son who came together and said,” I’ll be no 1. Many people didn’t like it. “
