{"id":1196,"date":"2011-02-10T12:17:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T11:17:49","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-04-17T12:56:23","modified_gmt":"2012-04-17T11:56:23","slug":"inside-tennis-pete-sampras-on-novak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/tennis\/inside-tennis-pete-sampras-on-novak\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Tennis: Pete Sampras on Novak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=arhiva src=https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/arhiva\/slike\/\/824.jpg>{nl}{nl}Here is part of Q&#038;A with Nole\u2019s idol, 14-time Grand Slam champion Pete Sampras, by Richard Osborn.{nl}{nl}<font color=\"gray\">Question:<\/font> You mention Novak &#8211; talk about his performance in Melbourne. What makes him special?{nl}{nl}<font color=\"gray\">Pete Sampras:<\/font> <b>Great mover. He can go from defense to offense better than anyone in the game.<\/b>{nl}{nl}<font color=\"gray\">Question:<\/font> Better than Nadal?{nl}{nl}<font color=\"gray\">Pete Sampras:<\/font> <b>I think he does more. He hits the ball a little flatter. He hits those flat backhands and he just sort of slides and is able to get that ball deep. It\u2019s hard to compete with Nadal when it comes to defense, but Djokovic is right there with him. He seemed very inspired down there. He had a lot of support from his homeland. And Novak is an emotional player. When he\u2019s feeling great and is in a good mood and the crowd is pulling for him, he\u2019s a very tough player to beat. I always felt that he\u2019s a little bit temperamental at times, but when he has it all together, he\u2019s right there with Roger and Nadal.<\/b>{nl}{nl}<font color=\"gray\">Question:<\/font> You were No. 1 for a record six straight years.  Is he capable of getting to the top spot?{nl}{nl}<font color=\"gray\">Pete Sampras:<\/font> <b>I don\u2019t know where the points stand, but sure. He started off winning the Australian and he\u2019s going to be a threat for the rest of the year. He believes in himself a little bit more.  He\u2019s beaten Roger twice in majors. He could very well do it. He\u2019s still got a lot of work ahead of him. Nadal\u2019s got a tough year to defend. I wouldn\u2019t count out Roger at all. It will be interesting to see. Novak has now arrived, and the way he played and beat Roger in straight sets, and Murray in straight sets, is pretty impressive.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here is part of Q&#038;A with Nole\u2019s idol, 14-time Grand Slam champion Pete Sampras, by Richard Osborn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[101010220],"class_list":["post-1196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-australian-open-2011-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1196"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26948,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1196\/revisions\/26948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}