Injured Novak Djokovic Expects To Play In Japan Open

Novak Djokovic, who was forced out of U.S. Open 2019 with a shoulder injury, is expected to play in Tokyo next week. The World No. 1 retired from his fourth-round clash against Stan Wawrinka earlier this month in New York.

A member of Djokovic's press team has confirmed that he has returned to training and has a good chance of playing at the ATP 500 tournament in Tokyo, starting Monday. Serbia's media quoted Djokovic saying that he has begun training and has not felt any sort of pain so far.

"Yesterday I trained for the first time after America and there was no shoulder pain which is an encouraging circumstance. For now, it seems like I have a good chance of playing Tokyo. That's my intention. The next two days will be crucial to assessing shoulder recovery," the Serbian athlete told Sportski zurnal on Tuesday.

Hr added that if he missed the Tokyo event, he is almost certain that he will play in Shanghai.

"Tokyo and Shanghai first. My team and I believe that in the past two to three weeks we have put the shoulder in the position of being able to withstand multiple tournaments in a row. Tokyo and Shanghai are both goals and purposes but everything is still in God's hands, the whole scenario. I don't know what it will be but everything is working great for now," the Serbian added.

Japan Open 2019 is scheduled to be played from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6 at Tokyo's Ariake Coliseum Stadium. The other seeded players, apart from Djokovic, in the men's singles category are Croatia's Borna Ćorić and Marin Cilic, Belgium's David Goffin and French Benoît Paire to name a few.

If Djokovic withdraws from the tournament, he would join the list of Wawrinka, Kevin Anderson, Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic. However, for sure, he would not want that to happen.

Djokovic, who is yet to win the Japan Open, has a serious threat from his arch-rival Rafael Nadal for the No. 1 ranking. To hold off Nadal here, it will be crucial for Djokovic to play out the season.