Novak Djokovic 'not playing before Wimbledon' to 'recover mentally' from French Open loss

Novak Djokovic will not be playing a grass court warm-up event following his quarter-final exit from the French Open and is instead set to come straight to Wimbledon. The Serb has not been in action since losing to Rafael Nadal in Paris and will not be getting any competition in before the next Grand Slam tournament, according to his coach.

Djokovic is the defending champion at Wimbledon but, with the ATP removing ranking points, is primed to take a blow to his ranking when his 2,000 points for last year's victory are removed. He is already set to drop to world No 3 on Monday as a result of his early exit from the French Open and could earn crucial points by competing in the grass-court warm-up events.

But the 20-time Grand Slam champion has opted to take a break in Montenegro instead, where he flew after losing to his long-time rival Nadal in the French Open quarter-final, with his coach admitting he needs time to "recover mentally" from the 6-2 4-6 6-2 7-6(4) loss. "Probably nothing (before Wimbledon). We will see more, but now is the time to recover mentally," Goran Ivanisevic told SportKlub.

Despite Djokovic's disappointment at failing to defend his French Open title, the retired former world No 1 claimed his charge would be ready to go in Wimbledon - where he is a six-time champion and has won the last three editions of the tournament. "As I said before, people like Novak are geniuses with a different way of thinking - they need a little time to come back and put some things together in their head, but it still takes time," he continued.

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"Then that is it, and even before experiencing disappointments, I know that he will be ready for the