“I Want To Apologize” Novak Djokovic & Piers Morgan Finally Meet | On Covid Row, Sinner & More

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0:25Piers Morgan:I'm going to start by making an apology. Tennis star Novak Djokovic, he had a hearing overnight to decide whether he will stay and play the Australian Open. The world number one has been booted out of Australia. Deportation marks the end of his Australian Open hopes. If I want to go to America, I have to take a test and show my vaccination status. That's it. So he shouldn't be allowed to play, right? Stops you from dying. I mean, that's the whole point of the vaccine. He's also a role model who will have definitely deterred a lot of people who perhaps should have the jab. What you said, it speaks volumes about the person that you are.

0:59I'm just saying I'm not like that.

1:00Piers Morgan:Is part of you also thinking, I'm not sure I can compete against these guys at this level now? To your point, yes, I do have more doubts that I can win slams, particularly against these two guys. I just stared at the wall for 20 or 30 minutes, and that's the first time I felt really empty. I just want to regain the love and passion for the sport, because I lost it. Have you one day played your son at tennis in a match? I mean, that's a dream. In a professional game. You wouldn't let him win, would you? I would kick his... On Sinner, is there a cloud over him about the drugs thing? That cloud will follow him as the cloud of Covid will follow me.

1:50You should ask him. I only interviewed goats. I expected worse. This is not against you and this you're kind of like intelligently hiding.

2:01Piers Morgan:Novak, we meet at last. At last. I've never met you. I've talked about you quite a lot. And I'm going to start by making an apology. And it's for this. I was very censorious about you over the COVID scandal that you got caught up in. And in a nutshell, you got thrown out of Australia over what seemed to be on the face of it, from what the media were being told and what was being reported was you trying to bend the rules of getting into playing Australian Open without having taken the COVID vaccine. And I was actually quite a sensorist about a lot of people at the time. And I've since apologised to some people for being too tough on them because once it became clear that if you had the vaccine it made no difference to whether you could then transmit the virus, clearly at that point for me it becomes a personal choice if the if the potential danger is irrelevant compared to whether you have the jab or not and so I have on that basis said like I believe the vaccines were important I think they saved a lot of lives I had lots of people in my life at the time who were going through a terrible time with COVID one of my co-workers on the morning show I was doing her husband was in a coma from COVID he sadly died a friend of mine said goodbye to her mother on FaceTime who was in a care home and died from COVID and so on.

3:29Piers Morgan:I knew lots of people. So it felt quite personal, it felt quite visceral to me, but I was too censorious. And when more information emerged about your situation, the fact you'd had COVID several weeks before you went to Australia, the fact that you hadn't actually done anything wrong on the form filling, the fact that in the end it became a political decision to throw you out based on likely public anger if they didn't take action. When I look back on that and reflect on that, I would like to say I'm sorry for the intemperate language I used against you because I didn't know you. I took what I was reading and hearing at face value.

4:06Piers Morgan:It turned out to be more complicated. And yeah, I'm sorry for over-egging the rhetorical souffle. I appreciate that very much. Let me get that off my chest. Your honesty. Thank you so much. It was difficult times and state of emergency globally. I understand. We've been through hell globally, all of us on this planet. The only thing I would add, not to really dig deeper into this whole situation on the COVID and vaccination, is that I was never a proponent of anti-vax or pro-vax. I was always freedom of choice. So, and that was misinterpreted. You know, I was proclaimed to be, you know, one side or the other side or so forth.

4:55It's either black or white. And I said, you know, it doesn't need to be that way. As an athlete, as someone that, you know, takes care of the integrity of the body and understanding of, obviously doing my research and understanding that I'm not a threat to anybody and I don't need to do it myself. And I've been through two times, two or three times I had COVID in like a year, year and a half. so I had all the antibodies etc so anyway long story short good to see you here good to finally meet you and I appreciate and I respect the fact that you know what you said it speaks volumes about the person that you are so I really respect that and I was looking forward to speak to even before before you were slamming me for some time.

5:44I'll check what I said about you.

5:46Piers Morgan:I have been very nice about you as well. Right, you have. On that particular issue, I went too far. I would say on the nice side, that as we sit here, I've made it very clear publicly. To me, I've spent this morning with Cristiano Ronaldo, who I know you know, and we'll come to him a little later because there are a few things you have in common. But he's, to me, the greatest football player that's ever lived. you to me are now indisputably the greatest tennis player that's ever lived and I've said that and I'll say it to your face appreciate that I hope we can move on from the slightly negative way this had to start because I felt compelled to say that because I think it's important to be intellectually honest and when the narrative around the efficacy of whether the vaccine could stop you infecting people changed I realized I'd been just too censorious right but on the positive note as you sit here do you feel yourself that you're the best tennis player that's ever played I've been asked this question quite a bit particularly lately in the last several years because of obviously there's a lot of stats that you know people play with and they do comparisons between Nadal Federer and myself primarily because of our numbers.

7:04Grand Slams won, Tournament won, we expanded number one of the world etc. But my answer is quite consistent when it comes to overall general discussion on the greatest of all time and I'm going to say it again which is I'm not going to say whether I'm the greatest or not because that's it's not my position to say that and I would say that that would be very disrespectful towards the generations that have paved the way for me Nadal, Federer and all the others. It's so hard to compare eras you know our sport has gone through quite a transformation in the last 50 years. We just see the records. I mean in terms of technology in terms of equipment in terms of the balls the the surfaces in terms of the the fitness in terms of the the staff of the team of people that is around the player it has become so much more professional not just not not because of the fact that it wasn't 30 40 50 years ago but it just the times are changing and the science the sport science is improving so people have more access of the data to information and hence why everyone gets more cautious and more I would say interested in understanding of what it takes in every single aspect of your life how you can get an edge or a slight percentage of improvement so so you can better your performance your recovery etc so the likes of Borg, Rod Laver, John McEnroe, those people that have you know created a history of the tennis that we enjoy today.

8:58Piers Morgan:What people say when they argue that you're the best is that if you take all surfaces and you compare your record to anybody in history, yes you've won the most grandstands but actually you won on everything, consistently. That is what makes you unusual. most of the others you could say on certain services they're stronger on others they're not as strong and obviously the same applies to you to a degree but you've won consistently on all surfaces well i think the modern tennis required me to do so uh and going back to 80s you had uh three out of four grand slants played on grass and now the grass is the uh you know least played surfaced on and I mean it's it's one month a year and it used to be you know predominant surface on the tour so the game has evolved a lot you used to have 90 % of the players only up to maybe 90s or maybe even late 90s early 2000s that would play serve and volley and they would you know switch from wooden records to graph it graph graph it records and then obviously move into more lighter and refined materials and which with this kind of materials you would be able to you know play from the baseline with more control with more accuracy with more precision that wasn't the case with more robust materials like like wood or graph it because you know you you it allowed you to serve well with with good speed but then you know you didn't have many players playing with a lot of spin Bjorn Borg was the first one that stayed the stayed back and he hasn't he can't we would come in but he would stay back quite a lot and so that would confuse a lot of players and and I mean hence his incredible career and achievements and I think you know we would probably be sitting down today and talking about Borg being the greatest if he kept going he retired when he was 26 and won 11 grand slams until that point which i mean alcaraz is is kind of on the way to do something like that uh so it's it again i i don't feel really comfortable i appreciate the fact that you're bringing this forward uh to me but i never felt really comfortable to talk about myself about being as being the greatest because i i consider myself as a great student of the game and I respect the history of the game.

11:30I respect all of the greats. So I just, and then some of those greats were my coaches like Boris Becker, for example, that I consider as part of my family. So I just feel more comfortable leaving that discussion to others. And of course, a great honor and privilege to be part of that discussion.

11:48Piers Morgan:But the bottom line, Novak, is you've won 24 Grand Slams and that is more than any player in history. That's true. The stats don't lie. That is true. That shows a remarkable longevity, and especially with Federer and Nadal snapping around that number. But ultimately you prevailed and you all had long careers. That's why for me, in the end, you're the top dog. You may not feel comfortable, but a little part of you has to like hearing. I know you are a fan of tennis and sports, so I appreciate it. What does it take in terms of sacrifice? I read somewhere recently you were talking about you've got two kids, they're getting older, I've got four kids, I know what that's like when they get to a certain level, and they start playing sport and you wanna be there, you wanna watch them have their journey on life.

12:39Piers Morgan:And there starts to be that thing, and Christiana was talking about it, a slight sort of feeling when you just start to have your, I guess your desire to be somewhere used to be single-mindedly on the court and winning and then it starts to be slightly conflicted with your family and wanting to be there for them and you you were talking about that entering your head for the first time talk about that for a moment it's interesting i had that discussion with some of my family members in the recent days as well because i'm going through some form of a transition myself you know and and trying to uh enter this this last chapter of however long is going to last for for me in my career with the the peace of mind where I'll be able to still maintain that hunger and the competitiveness on the court but yet you know deal with some realities that at this moment are you know not easy for me to accept you know being the dominant player for most of my career for over 20 years and now being dominated by particularly Alcaraz and Sinner in the last what is that like I mean for two young whippersnappers to come look I mean I I knew it was going to happen eventually that you know the guys will come and they'll you know they'll start to dominate and you're gonna think someone will form a new rivalry that is you know coming after the big three or the big four that have dominated a sport for over 20 years and I think it's a natural progress and evolution in in sport in general so sinner and Alcaraz I think they're great for our sport I mean their rivalry their matches and they played one of the most epic matches of all time in the finals of Roland Garros this year which was incredible just just to watch and and I was I was reflecting on that actually when I was at Wimbledon they asked me whether I watched it and I said that I didn't want to watch it because I lost semi-finals against sinner and Roland Garrison I went back home and when I'm done with the tournament I just want to switch off I want I don't want to see any tennis at least for a few days I want to be unless my my my son wants to play and then that's different obviously but my son and my wife particularly also my daughter to some extent but particularly my son and my wife they're big tennis fans so they love to watch tennis they love to watch the finals of big tournaments grand slams so I was somehow trying to drag them out of the house and I did that and I said let's go what we you know have lunch have a walk and they're like they didn't want to confront me but they were like we really want to watch this match and i said okay you know what you can watch a set you know let's just go and then and i i thought that the match will be over by then i i kind of planned my time outside for like a couple of hours i thought it's going to be like two and a half hours and they kept going they went for five and something hours so we went back and we ended up watching for two hours expressvpn is the simple way to protect your privacy online in the u.s internet providers record your online activity and can sell your data in many countries they've even legally required to store your information for years along with millions of others i use expressvpn to stop the tracking it hides your ip address and it routes all your activity through encrypted servers to keep advertisers and scammers from accessing your data you can choose the level of protection you need.

16:11Piers Morgan:The basic plan is just$3.49 a month, less than 12 cents a day. Right now, you can get an extra four months of ExpressVPN if you go to expressvpn.com slash peers to scan the QR code on the screen or go to expressvpn.com slash peers to get four additional months of service. That's expressvpn.com slash peers. What were you feeling watching them? You know, honestly, no, I was feeling various things. First, I was feeling like a refusal to watch. I was like, I was kind of forced to watch because just because my family wants me to watch. Yeah, I can't think of any of those. Right, and so then I was, and then I, but that went away quickly because then I was really, you know, when I watch tennis, which is, I assume, for Cristiano when he watches football you you see it with a different eyes than a regular football or tennis fan and and then I was very analytical at the beginning I was like you know trying to understand the game and what they're tactically doing to each other and then I entered the phase of admiration and I was I haven't felt that too many times in my life when I was watching someone else play.

17:34I felt a couple of times when I watched Federer and Nadal face each other. So just maybe four or five matches in my life that I watched and I said, wow, this is, you know, astronomical level of tennis is amazing. So that's what I felt. But are you also, is part of you also thinking, I'm not sure I can compete against these guys

17:59Piers Morgan:at this level now or is part of you thinking actually maybe I can't but I'm determined I'm going to yeah I what's the mindset I can't that's what I was saying like in terms of transition you know mentally because you know I'm aware of what's happening you know I mean I'm aware that these guys are my best level now their best level now they're better okay that's that's the reality I mean I for most of my career you know the visualization practice the the the techniques that you know brought me to the level of the mental strength and self-belief and the achievements that you know I have always believed in things that are almost impossible to achieve and I knew that the message that I tell myself or the signal that I give to myself the words that I'm telling myself internally and what I verbalize is sent out to the universe and it comes back in the same way that you sent it.

19:01So I was always trying to be very cautious and it's not always possible to be very positive and optimistic obviously but I was trained from a young age to think greatly about myself and to nurture the self-confidence because that's going to eventually whether it's sport or anything else in life bring you the rewards and and and allow you to chase your dream and basically don't you know not not settle for any boundaries you know and I my childhood was you know boundaries all over the place you know there's come from a country that was war-torn sanctions embargo tennis zero tradition of tennis in our country so you know most expensive sport you know the scarcity and poverty of my family and all the other families in our country most of the families and so i picked the most expensive sport and it's and so 99 of the people were obviously laughing at us and when at us i'm saying us because primarily my father and i my father you know i just thought you were wasting you know like but both of my parents they've done you know i cannot never repay them for what they've done for me enough but my father believed very often times more than I believe in myself so that's why I say us but you know so going back to the point yes I understand the power of the thoughts but at the same time there's a biology there there are things that are happening and I'm you know 38 going into 39 and the wear and tear is real and I I believe that to some extent I'm a Superman that can never injure himself they can never be weak etc but you know I got the slap from from reality the last couple of years and and and it's not like I'm paying the price but I'm just getting to

21:00Piers Morgan:know this this new chapter i have two i have two words for you yeah tiger woods so tiger woods absolutely peerless golfer number one in the world right ding went through very different trajectory to your story but he went through a lot of stuff which meant he plunged to number 1100 in the world and there's a brilliant video i think nike did it it's a mash-up video of everyone writing him off he's finished it's done he'll never win again no tiger was they're laughing at him right and then he wins the masters in 2019 against all expectations he takes all the young pups down do you think like you know next year the year after suddenly at wimbledon i think i've done that already last well no you have 23 yeah but you know actually olympic games you think there could be a few years perhaps where you don't win and then you win again and is that in your makeup up to do that so to your point yes I do have more doubts that I can win slams particularly against these two guys but at the same time I I know that when I while I'm still active and when I enter in the court you know I don't care who is across the net I always believe I'm better and I believe that I deserve to win and I'm gonna do everything I can do to win so bottom line is that one you know I have I'm nurturing still the winners mentality and I I just hope and this is one of my primary goals is to is to maintain the the body in shape that is if I could be reassuring you're not in bad shape I'm not in a bad shape I'm all being funny the eye if you want to know what a out of shape body looks like exhibit one is staring you you're right I expected worse

22:55Piers Morgan:I have my pinned tweet on my ex account is Cristiano from the last interview saying yeah I can see you have good abdominals yeah and I say thank you and it's had 200 million views so 200 million people think Cristiano Ronaldo said to me my abs were great I'll take it I'm not gonna spice up you I don't know if it's US or UK studio and I think your glass table is quite high so you you're kind of like intelligently hiding what you don't want to display it's pretty good I'll have you know I've already played one pro tennis player on television it was Serena Williams check the video it's all I'll say okay at one stage she screams oh god you're good about my tennis I isn't do I well and it is quite something do you listen to that before you do your interviews I just I watched it this morning before I knew I'm also seeing it's great it sounds like a good motivation i think you should watch it praise it could get you going but uh but see i find your mind because i think your mindset is very similar to ronaldo's i think the pair of you have i would say if i would add michael jordan peak tiger woods um there are certain people in certain sports who i think exhibit just the most ferocious mental strength and resilience which i think you have to have to be the best of what you do and i think in your case the really interesting thing for me is where that comes from.

24:21Piers Morgan:In Ronaldo's case, he was just hungry, literally physically hungry. He tells the story of queuing up behind a McDonald's just to get free burgers because he was so hungry when he was at the Lisbon Academy. In your case, I think it was born, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you talk about coming from a war-torn country. You were in Belgrade as the NATO bombs were crashing down for month after month after month. I've read that you can't even listen or hear fireworks without this giving you slightly traumatic PTSD. To go through that when you're a young guy as you were, just take me back there for a moment.

24:57Piers Morgan:What are your most vivid memories of that time? Actually, it's interesting. I didn't know about Cristiano's experience of waiting in line, literally being hungry. I have something similar. I was I think I could have been six seven years of age and we you know we had two wars in 90s we had the Yugoslavian breakout war and then we had the the bombings in 99 so between the start of the 90s of 91 when the war started and end of 90s we were we had embargo I think maybe four or five years maybe even more so you know obviously nothing comes in it comes out of the country and obviously, you know, the poverty level was extremely high.

25:45And we were waiting in line for one loaf of bread that us family of seven or eight were sharing that day. And so those experiences, life experiences were very real. And that made my journey even more special in a sense that I appreciate life and everything that life has and God has granted me with much more because of my upbringing so I normally don't like to reflect on that with a great sense of how can I say I'm not sadness but in a sense like I don't want to whine about it or complain about it because I believe that you know everyone wears a cross on his or hers back that is that he or she's meant to wear so I my journey is my unique personal journey that I had to go through and made me who I am so I'm very grateful for that what it was it easy no absolutely wasn't easy but that was essential integral part of who I am as a person and that is probably the foundation of my mental strength and resilience because when you are you know in doubt of what tomorrow brings not just for yourself but for your entire family and for your city for your country and whether you're will be able to survive the next day facing a match point in Grand Slam is not that hard you know

27:26Piers Morgan:there's a great quote from a cricket player called Keith Miller who was an Australian in the 50s and 60s a great all-rounder swashbuckling character big party guy as well and he flew in the Second World War and the Royal Australian Air Force few bombers on it and when he came back he was captaining Australia in a game I think he gets England and the press asked him after the first difficult day for australia they were struggling they said you must be feeling the pressure mr miller and he famously said pressure he said let me tell you what pressure is mate pressure is having a meshesmith up your ass not a game of cricket right i mean that's really what you're getting at right pressure for you yeah it's not a match point against federer it's whether you're going to actually survive bombs coming over your head right so it's a matter of perspective i agree with that and I think it puts things in perspective when someone says that nevertheless I still feel that pressure that we experience as athletes or your experience in your work or someone else in their work is real and sometimes it can help to put things in perspective but a lot of times it doesn't so what do I mean by that I think it's important to understand that you know what you're going through is a real experience and that you not being able to overcome certain tasks and challenges and folding on the pressure you know doesn't make you weak it makes your human being that goes through the experience so Jordan for example there was one of my sporting idols that you mentioned one of the obviously goats of the big global sports he you know he said that people remember his the shots that he made people remember his I quoted that today as the successes of the joy for him I quoted the fact he said they never talk about the three they never talk about those shots that he missed yeah and in one of my favorite quotes of him he says I missed and I missed and I missed or I failed I failed I felt and that's why I succeeded so so a lot of times people have this fantasy of the great sporting champions and athletes and the icons of being the faultless you know demi-gods that can do it all it's absolutely not like that i mean i failed so many times in my career actually i i almost have a 50 uh success rate at the grand slam finals a bit more than that but you've lost nearly so which is not that great when you think about it I played many Grand Slam finals and I won 24 but I lost I don't know how many at the moment but anyway quite a quite a lot so the point is that you need to go through that experience because and and this is very consistent across all the fields of life all the successful people always say you learn always much more from your failures than from your wins so it in sports what I see and what I notice particularly with men is that there is this a little bit of a dogmatic and stigmatic mindset about emotions you know vulnerability makes you weak you cannot show your tears you cannot show or your weakness because then you know you are the prey you know I disagree with that I believed for most of my career for first part of my career that that that is the way to go but then soon I realized that you know you can't suppress the emotions forever eventually they'll start breaking your body your mind or whatever so eventually you have to address it all the things that you put under the carpet so so basically this is a little bit more philosophical in that sense but you know when you're entering on the court for me I'm not a tennis player Novak Djokovic I'm a Novak Djokovic person who has to deal with all the other things that are happening in my private life that people don't know about or should not know about but I know about them and and I am a human being that you know i i feel affected in my heart and in my brain and i so here's a hard question because i totally agree right i had to run a newspaper newsroom of 400 journalists aged you know in my early 30s and often you'd have all sorts of terrible stuff to deal with in your life yeah and you got to walk out you got to exude an air of invincibility of super confidence because otherwise it doesn't the act doesn't play as the leader right yeah so i totally get that part of it but did you play better when you were fueled by difficult things going on in your life or when you were really happy a lot of people say like musicians that their albums when they're happy are terrible but when they're tormented they're great you know artists you know painters same thing if you're honest when have you played your greatest tennis at times of difficulty in your life or at times of happiness?

32:47I would say both. Right. I would say both. I respect that and I understand your point and their point. And it's true that I have experienced, you know, when I was experiencing a lot of adversity and some difficult moments in my life, that's when I, you know, draw this strength and turn it and convert it into fuel that then helps me perform my best tennis which you can say that it was a kind of a storyline of you know most of my junior days and kind of coming into the professional tennis and kind of winning the first you know bunch of slams in that kind of emotion of like hunger and needing to prove everybody wrong and like being upset with the childhood that I had and needing to like just you know prove to myself and others that I am you know the best and I can be the best and I can live these dreams from you know coming from that kind of environment and circumstances but I also I mean I think that it just depends it's quite relative and individual so it just depends where you draw your strength from mostly so I think that kind of mentality helps to at least in my case to certain extent and then and then you get you get fed up with that you know like I don't want to be drawing things from let's say somewhat of a negative emotion just because somebody hates me or said something or whatever so I'm gonna prove him or her or them or whatever wrong even though that is also a fuel still it remains at times but But it's more really a constructive energy, I would say.

34:39It's more like, okay, at least at this point in my life, in the last five years, it's like, okay, I have achieved great things in this sport. Probably around post-COVID time is when I entered this last phase of my career that I didn't know how and still don't know how long that's going to last. but you know how am I going to feel about you know my career playing tennis and how am I going to balance it with family life because you mentioned the fatherhood that's something that extremely important to me so there's a lot of sacrifice that you have to do and I don't want to miss out on the greatest things of my family the most important dates I don't want my kids to you know not remember me for being there and you know I think a lot of us fathers that are traveling for our work yeah understand this is very I was talking about it so so that's when I realized that I have to you know reconstruct the way I'm thinking and reinvent myself in a sense

35:44Piers Morgan:and draw the fuel and motivation from from other things when was the moment if you look back so far so sorry to change but for me one of the things that i want to say is one of the greatest motivations is to have both of my children be old enough to experience their daddy winning grand slams and being there and i have been so blessed and fortunate to experience that multiple times now so that for me is not a is not a fuel or motivation that comes from a negative place in country so I feel like you can you can have both just depends where you are in your phase in life when was the utopia moment for you in your playing career to date in other words if I could let you relive one match one game one set whatever it may be a period of your career yeah if I could let you relive it because at that moment you felt like you were playing at the highest level you've ever played at what would it be beginning of 2015 to mid 2016.

36:49And what's that feeling those 18 months we were actually reflecting on that last night with my team what's that feeling like uh you're unbeatable right no one can beat you it's invincible pretty pretty much like that literally a superman it's just it's a great it's a great fit i mean it's a great feeling it's honestly you're on on the clouds i mean you're just like anything you do you know turns to gold or anything you touch I mean it just and I you know not many athletes may be experienced that for so long no you know so I I'm look I'm blessed you know I

37:24Piers Morgan:could any other player let's park the goat debate right because that's over a whole career but you think at that in that period any other player in history could have beaten you no right no no at that time at that time no I mean but again you can what if you know you can maybe yeah but comparisons and whatever I suspect some amazing players whatever off today or 50 years ago but I just when you are in your prime and then you you you enter this zone that is often mentioned in the psychology of the sport where champions are talking about you know being in the zone the most difficult place or state of mind to achieve but easiest to lose and I've stayed there for 18 months so I yeah it was I can tell you even as you're remembering is greatest spring a warm glow yeah it's like the greatest surfing wave ever massive wave and it never stopped exactly exactly and then eventually it crashes down eventually it crashes down that i had the sir look it's it's it's the cycle of life you know i like the analogy of the wave is actually for life you know it goes up and down up and down getting older hits you like a freight train or so people tell me.

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40:14Piers Morgan:AFTV's Robby, who lost more than£100. To watch their full stories and many more, scan the QR code on your screen or visit OxfordNatural.com slash peers. And here's the best part. Use the code peers and get 70 % off your first order. Get 70 % off with the code peers. There was a British Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, in the 70s, And he he said that being prime minister, that early on, it's like you're in a stormy ocean and you're being crashed by wave after wave after wave. And eventually you realize it's always like that. And so you learn to ride the waves and navigate the waves. I imagine I've never been in this position, but I imagine being an elite sportsman at the highest level.

41:02Piers Morgan:That's what it's like. Weathering the storm constantly. and when you are riding the wave or invincibility or you know because at that period I had I think almost 20 or 19 finals in a row and you know dominating in all surfaces and all tournaments there was no tournament that I didn't play that I was not in the finals so that's also quite dangerous place to be in mentally and emotionally if you know what I mean because you're like I mean I can play every week I don't get tired I'm fine I'm great nobody can beat me and so forth so your ego grows you know and then then the natural cycle of the waves has come to the point of decline and then and then it hits you harder than ever right and that's when I actually had the the most made the the biggest injury in my career which was my elbow and I operated I went out of the tour for almost a year and so forth so that was a big you know slap in my face like oh wow okay go from invincible and then you're going to invincible but even when I before that big injury was coming slowly step by step and I was kind of masking it and you know you take tablets and painkillers and you're like no I just keep going I will not address it now your body sends you signals you'd stop those signals and that's it's a vicious cycle in on the highest level of sport and I'm sure that the athletes who play in the highest level understand this because this is this is it's super dangerous place to be in because the more you delay proper addressing of the injury the worse it gets and I remember particularly one point in Wimbledon there was my always a childhood dream tournament to play on and to win.

43:002016 I held, I won my first Roland Garros and I held all four slams at the same time and I was one of the few players in history that managed to do that and I never and I was telling all the people around me, you know my wife and parents and everybody that were like you know maybe you should take a little break and then come back and then like you know because you achieved it all and then it's like no no no i mean don't worry about motivation i i'd have no issue with that i'm never going to experience something that i have read or heard other athletes experiencing that they said well you know it comes to the point where you just feel empty you don't know you have any but i was like what is this like i'm never going to experience that and i experienced it a few few weeks later for the first time ever it was a a court won in Wimbledon third round I was playing Sam query and I think it was third or fourth set was a rain interruption and we had two rain interruptions the first one my team joined me and we talked and I had a little stretch with my physio we went back and kept going and I I was two sets the love down I won the third set on a gained the momentum and I felt better about being on the court another rain in delay I go back to the isolated room and the stadium and my team comes and I'm like guys you just have to leave me alone I just want to be by myself and they're like you don't need you know maybe we talk no I just don't want to talk and I let the bags everything I didn't want to drink I just stared at the wall for 20 or 30 minutes and I that's the first time I felt really empty And that's when I realized that, you know, all the stress and tension and excitement and anticipation, all the strong emotions I was feeling for whatever years coming to that moment, you know, my brain has had enough.

45:04And I just needed to reset. And so you need to reset. and and and I had to do it many times in my career where you just have to you win that match I lost that match I lost that match and and then I had the break and then I came back and I skipped some tournaments and came back played finals of US Open and then that's the year when Andy Murray ended up as the year and number one and he beat me in O2 arena in the world tour finals and and and and And after that match, even though I kind of lost a huge gap of the points that I had as an advantage over him, and I thought, everybody thought it's going to be a piece of cake finishing as number one, but he was red hot on some streak of four or five tournaments, one in a row, and I didn't care about whether I'm going to finish number one or not.

46:03That's the kind of a stage or condition that I had at the moment, a state of mind. I was just I just want to regain the love and you know passion for the sport because I lost it so that was that was the case extraordinary yeah insight into what has gone on with you

46:22Piers Morgan:is it there's a great line you said when I was 12 my father sat me my mother and two younger brothers down at the table he left a ten dollar bill on the table and said this is all we got yeah wow what a moment right ten dollars sitting there right that's it it was actually 10 deutsch marks so at the time probably less is equivalent yeah at the time it was something like ten dollars or whatever right yeah I remember I remember very vividly how that happened and when it happened and and and so because it was one of the one of the turning points of my life and I understood the message behind it from my father which was okay I need you to man up I need you to mature earlier than you're supposed to I need you to maybe take the role of the kind of a second father of the home and take care of your brothers you really felt I did feel that I did feel that and that helped me with my tennis actually I mean I always had discipline and and I was so in love with tennis and so passionate about it and very lucky to encounter certain coaches and mentors and people that were very knowledgeable about sport and life in general so I had the very good guidance and then at home I mean because of the circumstances that we were all going through in our country you know there was there was a lot of tension you know my father he was you know it was a matter survival you know my mother she was trying to you know navigate everyone clean cook prepare all of us you know the three boys plus the father and father was trying to figure out the way how we can survive as a family and and so it was it was tough it was that was real life and but you know when I look back to it now I'm actually grateful that we went through that experience because, you know, it makes you appreciative of everything else that you have right now, you know, because you come from that.

48:21Piers Morgan:How much are you worth now? Do you know? Approximately. Give me a ballpark. I don't like to talk about it, Pierce. I don't like it. Are you a, can I guess? I'm north of one million. well i reckon you're probably if i was a guessing man i'd say at least three to four hundred million maybe maybe maybe more you know i never you know we live in uh in very materialistic society nowadays and i'm only the reason i'm not i'm not this is not against you and this but i'm just i i'm just saying i'm not like that i'd never i don't i don't like and i you know my team and my agent I mean, I don't want to give all the information to Forbes, for example, how much I'm worth or what the investments are.