Novak Djokovic on walking away

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MELBOURNE, Australia -- When Novak Djokovic walked off the court in his Australian Open quarterfinal match against Andy Roddick on Tuesday, conceding the match because he felt ill from the heat, it wasn’t the first time the 21-year-old Serb, who was the defending champion, had quit in a major moment.’

He has twice stopped early against Rafael Nadal in major tournaments -- in the 2006 French Open quarterfinals and the 2007 Wimbledon semifinals.

Djokovic said his past concessions didn’t cause him any hesitation about walking away against Roddick. ‘This is all part of the sport,’ Djokovic said. ‘I always retired with a reason. Whenever I retired, I retired because I felt I cannot go on.’

Djokovic said he had requested to play a night match Tuesday before his fourth-round win over Marcos Baghdatis lasted until 2:26 a.m. Monday, a request that was denied. Matched between Australian comeback girl Jelena Dokic and Dinara Safina, and second-seeded Roger Federer and Juan Martin Del Potro were put on the evening session with Djokovic and Roddick playing in the hottest part of the day, late afternoon.

‘I didn’t really have time to recover,’ Djokovic said. ‘There were really difficult circumstances. It was unfortunate for me. I did request to play a night match but it didn’t come up good for me. If you end up a match at 3 a.m., it’s basically logical thinking that you should play the same match, after 7:30 p.m. But it didn’t happen.’

-- Diane Pucin