"I have reason to be worried" - Novak Djokovic fears hamstring injury could derail Australian Open campaign

Novak Djokovic fears that his hamstring injury could derail his 2023 Australian Open campaign even though he breezed past Enzo Couacaud in the second round on Thursday.

Djokovic hurt his hamstring during his semi-final clash against Daniil Medvedev at the Adelaide International 1 (on January 7) and has since played with a considerable amount of discomfort.

His pain seemed to have worsened against Couacaud as he required medical attention during the match. Speaking to the press after the win, the Serb admitted that he was "worried" by his injury situation.

"I am worried. I mean, I cannot say that I'm not. I have reason to be worried," Novak Djokovic said.

Revealing how his physio and medical team have been working tirelessly to ensure he can play every match, the Serb stressed that he will do all he can to keep playing in his condition.

"But at the same time I have to accept the circumstances and try to adjust myself with my team. My physio and medical team has been doing everything possible so that I can be able to play every match," he said.

"There's not much more to talk about. There's two choices: leave it or keep going. So I'm going to keep going. I'm going to try to play and compete with, of course, a great player Dimitrov in a couple days' time," he added.

Djokovic's next opponent will be Grigor Dimitrov, who has been in fine form in Melbourne so far, beating both Laslo Djere and Aslan Karatsev in straight sets.

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"Don't know how we can change that" - Novak Djokovic feels poor scheduling at the Australian Open has been unfortunate

Novak Djokovic applauds the fans during the 2023 Australian Open

Novak Djokovic finished his match against Enzo Couacaud well past midnight, with matches on other days also finishing late into the night. This gives some players lesser time to rest or to heal from injuries or niggles.

When asked for his two cents on the scheduling issues, the Serb pointed out that the schedule, although inconvenient, has been greatly affected by the weather in recent days. Several matches have been temporarily halted due to either rain or extreme heat over the past couple of days.

"I don't know how we can change that (smiling). The schedule is affected by the weather obviously. Last few days we know we had heat rule, we had rain. It pushed back some of the matches that went deep into night yesterday, obviously again today," the Serb said.

Djokovic explained that a 12:30 am finish does not mean a player cannot immediately go and rest, as they have to go through a recovery process, which often lasts four to five hours. He believes such a situation is far from ideal as it also hampers the gap day between matches.

"That's obviously something that you just have to accept and deal with. I mean, it's best-of-five for us guys. Yeah, it's not perfect that when you finish a match or now it's 12:30, as you mentioned, and then you have to do recovery, so forth, and you go to sleep, 3, 4, 5 a.m., it affects recovery and the next day. The good thing is you have a day between the matches, on a positive note," he said.