Ahead of the 2024 Australian Open, defending champions Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka played a mixed doubles friendly match at Rod Laver Arena in Australia on January 11.
Here, Djokovic transformed himself into the “King of Tennis Clown”, making the audience and his teammate Sabalenka laugh out loud with his creative actions.
Nole and Sabalenka’s opponents are the Greek tennis couple Stefanos Tsitsipas and Maria Sakkari. The players can talk into the microphone to interact with their opponents and fans while competing.
During Sabalenka’s serve, Djokovic asked Sabalenka to pay attention to the hand signals he made behind his back. The actions were quite similar to the gestures commonly seen on the volleyball court.
The funny thing is, the WTA No. 2 didn’t understand the message Nole wanted to convey. So Djokovic started shaking his butt, making everyone in the stadium laugh.
The conversation between the four players is as follows. Djokovic said: “I’m going to show you (Sabalenka) some signals, do you understand?”.
Sabalenka replied: “Can anyone help me understand what he is doing? Oh, look at how beautiful his movements are!”
Across the net, female tennis player Sakkari said: “I’m sure your boyfriend (Sabalenka’s boyfriend Konstantin Kolstov) will not be happy with that!”.
Sabalenka replied: “I hope he won’t see this video!”
During the meeting, Djokovic also had many other activities. The 36-year-old tennis player in a wheelchair played tennis, played basketball, practiced yoga and competed in athletics on the tennis court.
Djokovic seems to have fully recovered from the injury he suffered at the 2024 United Cup, and the Serbian player is ready to aim for his 11th Australian Open title.