By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday April 27, 2021
Novak Djokovic will skip next week’s Madrid Open.
The World No.1, a three-time champion who won the event on its last staging in 2019, is coming off a semifinal loss at Belgrade to Aslan Karatsev that dropped his record on clay to 2-2 in 2021.
“Roland-Garros still stays the main focus for me,” he said last Saturday in Belgrade. “I need to improve. I need to play better in order to have a chance for the Roland-Garros trophy I need to play much better than I did today, or in Monte-Carlo, so, yes, there is much work ahead of me, and hopefully it can be beneficial when it matters most in Paris.”
At the time Djokovic seemed like he was leaning towards skipping Madrid already.
“I will hopefully play in four or five weeks again,” he said. “That’s the plan, so let’s see if that’s going to happen, but Roland-Garros is the goal, obviously that’s where I want to play my best.”
For now it looks like Djokovic will only play Rome before Roland-Garros, but there is the potential that he will return to Belgrade for the Belgrade Open, which will take place May 22-28, the week before main draw play at Roland-Garros begins.