retired too many times in mid-match during his career. The quarter-final against Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open on Wednesday was just the one of a long list and in an interview to Nine McEnroe spoke about the Serb and the Japanese.
Novak knew that Nishikori has played three five-setters. The guy looked absolutely spent in the warm-up. Thats when you know, youre going to have a big smile on your face. Its sort of like the over/under – is he even going to finish the match? You could tell in the first game he was hurting bad.
Its too bad, but it just shows you in an individual sport, if you have to waste that much energy … and some of this was Keis fault. He should have put away Karlovic in three sets, he could have won his first-round match against a qualifier more easily but he didnt, and it ended up catching up to him.
You should read into it that its sort of like a middleweight playing heavyweights. At a certain point, he gives in mentally. Thats why he hired Chang. Michael wouldnt do that, and you could see Michael was dismayed in the coaches box; Why do you have to sort of stop playing? Thats not in his (Changs) DNA, so hes trying to get that more into Keis.
But Kei … some guys and girls have higher thresholds of pain than others and they can go out there and compete at a higher level for longer. But hes not one of them. On Serena Williamss loss to Karolina Pliskova, McEnroe added: A little bit of a choke.
They are human beings. When you see Roger – he goes up against Tsitsipas and then he loses – but you look back at their accomplishments and you say: Oh my god, what they have done already is out of this world! If you said Pete Sampras, who has 14, would be overtaken by three guys, you would be like: You are crazy
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