"I am an easy target to be the villain" - Novak Djokovic furious with media wrongly portraying him following toilet break controversy

Novak Djokovic has made his fury with the tennis media clear after they misrepresented him regarding the recent toilet break controversy, demanding a public apology from all concerned parties.

During his first-round match against Roberto Carballes Baena at the 2023 Australian Open, Djokovic had to rush over to the toilet at 3-2 in the first set. In light of this, sports channel Eurosport posted a video on their social media platforms about the Serb defying the chair umpire's order not to leave.

However, the 21-time Grand Slam champion later took to Instagram to justify his actions, claiming that the umpire did grant permission and had called his name simply to inform him that the toilet was on the other side of the court.

Following his second-round win over Enzo Couacaud, the Serb told Serbian reporters in his press conference that he is an easy target to portray as a "villain," which has become a "normal occurrence" for him recently.

Declaring that he would not tolerate such "injustice," he wondered why there wasn't someone in the ATP and the WTA to protect the players from being misrepresented like this.

"In our organisation–ATP or WTA–there has to be a system of timely protection of players, someone who will react, do something about these things. I am an easy target to be the villain. That is how they portray me, for me that is now a normal occurrence–but I will not tolerate injustice," he said.

Novak Djokovic went on to remark that he usually doesn't react to such things, but claiming that Eurosport went too far this time, he was of the opinion that they didn't deserve to "get away with it."

"Some things I can tolerate, some I cannot–they do not deserve for something like this to just be allowed, to get away with it. Usually I don’t react, even though I could have reacted a thousand times over different things in the past," he said.

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"Are they going to publicly apologise to me? I don’t think so" - Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic pictured at the 2023 Australian Open - Day 4

Furthermore, the Serb wished for a public apology, even though he believes it is unlikely to happen. While Novak Djokovic revealed that he had received a private apology, he did not think it was sufficient and wanted fans following the sport to also know that he had committed no misdeeds.

"Today they went completely overboard. Nobody apologised to me publicly. Are they going to publicly apologise to me? I don’t think so. Eurosport is broadcasting the Australian Open, they are one of the biggest sports channels in the world. They could issue a public apology," he said.

"Both times they apologised to me privately, but people don’t know about that. I know it, and you know it – because I just told you, but the majority of people who follow tennis will never hear about it," he added.

The 35-year-old will next face Grigor Dimitrov in the third round to keep his hopes of winning a 22nd Major title, his 10th Australian Open title, and regaining the World No. 1 rank alive.