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Monica Puig thinks Cameron Norrie smashing a ball into Novak Djokovic's body actually made the Serb more determined to show the Briton who was "the boss" on the court. After getting annoyed by Norrie's loud 'Come On" shouts, Djokovic got even more frustrated by the Briton after his rival landed a smash into his leg all while his back was turned.
It was evident that Djokovic didn't like Norrie's actions at all but the Serb remained focused and completed a 6-3 6-4 win. Puig, the 2016 Rio Olympics gold medalist, noted she also wasn't a fan of Norrie landing an overhead at Djokovic.
“Obviously, that just made Djokovic go that extra level of fire and say 'hey, you’re not going to screw with me here on the court, I'm the boss, I'm in charge, and I'm going to show you. If it were me, I wouldn’t go about hitting my opponent with an overhead.
It's been discussed, he had the whole court," Puig said on Tennis Channel.
Puig thinks Norrie's actions motivated Djokovic even more
While Djokovic wasn't happy with Norrie's actions, the Serb acknowledged that the Briton didn't do anything that was illegal.
However, Djokovic also noted that it doesn't mean that Norrie's actions were fair. "I did watch the replay when he hit me. Maybe you could say he didn't hit me deliberately. I don't know if he saw me. Peripherally you can always see where the player is positioned on the court.
The ball was super slow and super close to the net. I just turned around because the point was over for me. It was not so much maybe about that, it was maybe about that, but it was maybe a combination of things. From the very beginning he was doing all the things that were allowed.He's allowed to take a medical timeout.
He's allowed to hit a player. He's allowed to say 'come on' in the face more or less every single point from basically the first game. Those are the things that we players know in the locker room it's not fair play, it's not how we treat each other. But, again it's allowed, so..." Djokovic said.