Novak Djokovic can remember back to his younger days when he had to hand wash the gritty red clay of Roland Garros out of his tennis clothes himself.
“In the juniors I used to wash the laundry with my hands. Back then every euro meant a lot, so I didn’t want to spend too much on that,” he said.
But as his profile increased so did the decline of his laundry skills. Now, as third in the world, the Serb lives comfortably in the cushioned bubbles of he tennis elite.
“We have good organisations with the tournaments, they organise the laundry service for us. We do give them our laundry and we have to wait two days.”
Djokovic told one eager questioner that he goes through at least three shirts per day during a tournament. Ands he gave a nod to the unseen workers who do the dirty work at the French Open.
“They have a quite good laundry service. It’s all quite white and clean when you get it back. When you wash it with hands then it stays red...”
