Millions of individuals have watched this video of Novak Djokovic’s help staff cooking one thing up throughout his semifinal win over Stefanos Tsitsipas on the Paris Masters final week, and loads of them have drawn unsavory conclusions on how a water bottle was handled like a extremely delicate useless drop.
The video could possibly be an instance of an innocuous exercise being performed in maximally sketchy trend. Many tennis gamers drink electrolyte concoctions throughout play, typically colourful, typically unbranded, and typically ready by their help staff mid-match. Andre Agassi was well-known for his “Gil Water,” devised by his forward-thinking coach Gil Reyes. Here’s how Agassi described it in his 2009 memoir, Open:
Time to make the Gil Water. I sweat so much, greater than most gamers, so I would like to start hydrating many hours earlier than a match. I down quarts of a magic elixir invented for me by Gil, my coach for the final seventeen years. Gil Water is a mix of carbs, electrolytes, salt, nutritional vitamins, and some different components Gil retains a intently guarded secret. (He’s been tinkering along with his recipe for twenty years.) He often begins force-feeding me Gil Water the night time earlier than a match, and retains forcing me proper as much as match time. Then I sip because the match wears on. At totally different levels I sip totally different variations, every a unique coloration. Pink for power, purple for restoration, brown for replenishment.
Some gamers are guarded about their vitamin secrets and techniques, hoping to protect any aggressive edge. Others will overtly slug maple syrup out of the bottle. You see all of it.
So possibly Djokovic’s physiotherapist, Ulises Badio, is mixing such an electrolyte beverage on this video. Why Badio is doing this at roughly ankle degree, I can not say. Perhaps he, like his shopper, is at all times engaged on his flexibility and simply wished to get a deep hip hinge in. A person in a inexperienced jacket palms stuff to Badio between the seat rows. Then comes the paranoia. Djokovic’s coach, Goran Ivanisevic, suspecting that their actions are being filmed, orchestrates the encompassing our bodies to dam the road of sight. A dialog is staged, shoulders are adjusted, and the home-brewing continues. The bottle is then handed to a ball lady who runs it over to Djokovic, resting throughout a changeover.
At Wimbledon this yr, Djokovic was seen consuming something out of a white water bottle. It didn’t seem like liquid, primarily based on what he did along with his mouth to eat it. In press that week, he was requested concerning the bottle and its contents. “Magic potion,” Djokovic said. “That’s all I can say. It helps. You’ll find out soon, but I can’t speak about it now.”
After successful the ultimate over Nick Kyrgios, Djokovic was requested once more concerning the magic potion, and he urged that it was a enterprise secret which may at some point be on the market. “It’s going to come out as one of the supplement, let’s say, lines that I’m doing right now with drink and a few other things, sports drinks, et cetera. It will come out there,” he said. “You’ll try it and you’ll let me know how it feels. You might win Wimbledon.”
Djokovic hasn’t been straight requested concerning the bottle in Paris but, however on Tuesday, his spouse Jelena replied directly to the tweeted video. “I don’t see anything dodgy. In fact, I see people trying to be private about their business in a world where everyone feels like they have every right to point camera at you whenever they want,” she wrote. “Apparently, wanting/trying to be private makes you dodgy nowadays.”
An obvious Djokovic fan had some PR recommendation for the camp. Jelena didn’t admire it:
