One day after getting crushed by a water bottle following his 2024 Italian Open match, Novak Djokovic showed up wearing a bike helmet.
The 36-year-old strapped the helmet to his head over a white hat, and he signed autographs and smiled for cheering fans after arriving at Forto Italico.
“Today I came prepared,” Djokovic, who doesn’t play again until Sunday, wrote in a post on X while sharing the video.
Following his straight-set win over Corentin Moutet on Friday, Djokovic started signing autographs for fans — making it through a hat and a sheet of paper — while walking off the court before a water bottle slipped out of a fan’s backpack and hit his head.
Djokovic grabbed his head and eventually ended up on the ground, surrounded by three different people.
He had some blood on his head, according to the Associated Press, but it didn’t require stitches.
The Italian Open said in a statement that the incident was “not a cause for concern,” a sentiment Djokovic reiterated later in a post on X.
“Thank you for the messages of concern,” he wrote. “This was an accident and I am fine resting at the hotel with an ice pack. See you all on Sunday.”
Djokovic’s match against Moutet marked the start of his third tournament since falling to Jannik Sinner in the Australian Open semifinals in January — snapping a 33-match winning streak at the event, and ending his bid for an 11th Australian Open title and 25th Grand Slam title.
“He was upset, but he seems OK,” Italian Tennis Federation spokesman Alessandro Catapano said about the bottle incident, according to the AP. “We’re also very upset about what happened and we are trying to figure out who it was and understand the dynamics.
“The police came and asked for information but the person who did it had already left,” Catapano added. “We’re going through all of the video and camera angles to see if we can determine what exactly happened.”
After defeating Moutet 6-3 6-1, Djokovic said that it took time to adjust to the “different rotation” of the left-hander’s shots.
The opening four games “were quite bad,” he added, but he recovered after that and cruised into his match against No. 29-seed Alejandro Tabilo.