Novak Djokovic Jokes About Breaking Roger Federer Curse After Wimbledon 4th Round Win

After surviving a tough match against Alex De Minaur in the fourth round at Wimbledon, Novak Djokovic had a funny reason why Monday's win meant more to him.

During his post-match interview, Djokovic joked that he was relieved to finally win a match while fellow tennis legend Roger Federer was in attendance.

"It's probably the first time he's watched me and I won the match," Djokovic said. "The last couple I lost, so it's good to break the curse!"

De Minaur surprisingly dominated the first set 6-1, which was enough for Djokovic to wonder whether the Federer curse would strike again. He had an uncharacteristic 16 unforced errors in the match. Had he lost, it would've been his earliest Wimbledon exit since 2016. However, he overcame the tough start to win the match in four sets, 1-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

"I'm still trying to process the whole match and what happened in the fourth," Djokovic said in his on-court interview, per ESPN. "It wasn't a great start for me, was a great start for him obviously. … He was managing better … I didn't have many solutions to be honest."

Djokovic also paid homage to Federer once again when he said, "Sometimes I wished I had a serving volley and a nice touch from the gentleman standing right there."

Djokovic is looking to tie Federer as an eight-time Wimbledon champion, which would be his 25th career Grand Slam title. He will face No. 22 Flavio Cobolli of Italy in the quarterfinal on Wednesday. Cobolli defeated Marin Cilic 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3) to reach his first career major quarterfinal.