At 37, it isn’t a surprise to see an athlete go through injury troubles. A player of even the stature of Novak Djokovic cannot avoid this situation with the competitive nature of the sport that tennis is. The Serb hasn’t enjoyed a great year, with poor form and injuries. He didn’t have the best start to the season and then suffered a concerning knee injury mid-way through the season at the French Open. Despite undergoing a successful surgery, there were visible concerns in Djokovic camp earlier today.

Djokovic is bidding to win an astonishing 100th Tour title, as he competes at the Shanghai Masters. He defeated Jakub Mensik earlier today to set up a semifinal contest with Taylor Fritz. While Djokovic continues marching toward his 100th ATP title, the Serb was in visible pain during his win over Mensik. He was seen having some discomfort in his left knee, as he later provided an injury update.

During the post-match press conference, Djokovic said, “It’s a strange feeling, to be honest, those couple of points in that game, but after that it was fine. So, hopefully when it cools down I’m not going to have any troubles with it, because I already have troubles with the right knee, so it wouldn’t be great. Yeah, let’s see what tomorrow brings.”

There were visible signs of Djokovic having some troubles with his left knee when he was readying to serve at 3-2 in the final set. The Serb paused and bent over in pain before stretching his leg. In the next game when Mensik served, Djokovic hardly attempted any returns in order to conserve the energy to serve out the set.

Despite prevailing over Mensik, the 24-time Grand Slam champion was all praise for the 19-year-old. Djokovic even pointed out one of Mensik’s biggest strengths and predicted big things for him in the future.

Novak Djokovic on Jakub Mensik: ‘The future is very bright for him’

At 19, Mensik is one of the most exciting prospects on the ATP Tour. He rose up the ranks, right from his junior days when he finished runner-up in the 2022 Australian Open juniors category. Djokovic has followed him closely ever since his achievement in 2022. Impressed by his huge serve, the former World No. 1 lauded Mensik while expecting him to raise the bar in the future.

The Serb maestro revealed, “I haven’t trained with him for a year and a half, so I could see today why he is one of the best servers we have in the game. He is only 19, the future is very bright for him. He knows that I am always there for him, whatever he needs. Jakub is somebody that I have been following for the last three or four years, ever since he played the finals of junior Australian Open. We like playing each other, we raise the level when we face each other. We’ve played a lot of practice sets and it’s always fun.”

After getting past the finish line in the quarterfinals, Djokovic has another tough battle on the cards, with Taylor Fritz lurking. However, the veteran has a 9-0 head-to-head record against Fritz and will look to make it 10 wins in a row when they face off tomorrow. Do you think Fritz can pull off an upset though? Let us know in the comments below.