Novak Djokovic hits ball towards line judge AGAIN at French Open 2020: Watch

Its been a weird year for Novak Djokovic. The Serbian started his year on a high, defeating long-time rival Rafael Nadal at the ATP Cup final in straight sets, before going on to win his eighth Australian Open title. His last tournament on the tour was the Dubai Tennis Championships, where he defeated second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas to maintain his unbeaten streak in 2020. After the suspension of the tour and the subsequent quarantine, Joker made the fateful and misguided decision to host the Adria Tour. 

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Novak Djokovic defaulted from US Open 

Somehow, the Adria Tour was not Djokovic's worst moment this year. The World No. 1 was enjoying an unbeaten streak in 2020, and in the absence of Federer and Nadal, was gifted a chance to win his 19th Grand Slam. However, in a surprise turn of events, he was disqualified from the US Open after accidentally hitting a ball into a lineswoman's throat during his round of 16 match against Pablo Carreno Busta. Despite the act being unintentional and not causing any permanent damage to the judge, Djokovic was asked to leave the US Open.

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Joker's French Open 2020 run-in with linesperson

After a heartfelt apology and a break, Djokovic returned to the tour at the Italian Open. He said that the disqualification had not affected his game, but had made him wiser. He added that he was only human and was bound to make mistakes from time to time. He carried on his form from the US Open, winning the Rome Masters in straight sets. Now at French Open 2020, Djokovic has breezed past all his competitors, again, without dropping a single set. 

However, he did have a slight scare during his 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 win over Russia’s Karen Khachanov. Djokovic was in full-stretch while trying to return one of Khachanov's shots when the ball bounced off his racket and hit a linesperson. This time around, there was a much more balanced reaction from organizers, who understood that it was completely unintentional. Notably, Djokovic's win has earned him a rematch with Pablo Carreno Busta in the French Open 2020 quarter-final. 

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Talking about the incident afterwards, Novak Djokovic said: "My gosh, it was very awkward deja vu. I'm actually trying to find the linesperson and see if he's OK. Obviously, because of what happened in New York, people are going to make the story out of this. It has happened to me and to many other players in the last 15 years that I've been on the tour." 

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Image Credits: Novak Djokovic Twitter