{"id":37964,"date":"2012-11-17T02:01:51","date_gmt":"2012-11-17T00:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/?p=37964"},"modified":"2012-11-19T03:25:26","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T01:25:26","slug":"nole-to-play-guga-in-exhibition-match-on-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/news\/media\/nole-to-play-guga-in-exhibition-match-on-saturday\/","title":{"rendered":"Nole to play Guga in exhibition match in Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

World no.1 Novak Djokovic arrived in Rio de Janeiro, where he will play his last exhibition match before going on holidays.<\/p>\n

Nole joined Brazilian champion Gustavo Kuerten for the inauguration of the public tennis court in\u00a0the underprivileged region of Rocinha. He will face the three-time French Open titlist (1997, 2000 and 2001) in an exhibition match on Saturday at the Maracanazinho Arena (18.30 local time \/ 21.30 CET).<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you very much for the warm welcome. It will be a very special weekend. I\u2019m very happy and I feel privileged to be here,\u201d<\/strong> Novak said at the press conference.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019m gonna play against you, Guga, I\u2019ve always waited for that chance. You\u2019re the favourite on clay, you won Roland Garros three times.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m impressed by the generosity of the people and if I\u2019m able to help to promote tennis in Brazil, I\u2019ll give my best. If Brazil can host the World Cup and the Olympic Games, it also deserves a great tennis tournament. I hope that happens\u201d<\/strong>, he added.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Serbian star will also play a football friendly before a Brazilian league match on Sunday, when he will join his countryman Dejan Petkovic, Zico, Romario, Bebeto, Cafu and other Brazilian superstars (14.50 local time \/ 17.50 CET).<\/p>\n

After winning the ATP World Tour Finals in London, Djokovic said he was very excited about coming to Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy and honoured to have the opportunity to play in a big stadium with some big stars as Bebeto, Cafu and Zico. Brazil is such a great and successful nation in football. It\u2019s the national sport. I love football. I\u2019m terrible, but I\u2019ll try to enjoy the moment and hopefully have fun.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Photos: Rio Exhibition<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Novak joined Brazilian champion Gustavo Kuerten on Friday for the inauguration of the public tennis court in Rocinha. They will play an exhibition match on Saturday at the Maracanazinho Arena.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":37961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[101012392,101010899,101012333,101010898,101010902],"class_list":["post-37964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-media","tag-brazil-en","tag-dejan-petkovic-en","tag-exhibition-en","tag-gustavo-kuerten-en","tag-rio-de-janeiroen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37964","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=37964"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37979,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37964\/revisions\/37979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novakdjokovic.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}