This year’s Wimbledon tennis championships will get underway on Monday and world No.1 Novak Djokovic is busy preparing to defend his title.  

One of the ways the Serb is doing that is by playing in the Boodles exhibition event where he outclassed Chile’s Christian Garin 6-2, 6-4 to kickstart his grass court season campaign at Stoke Park. 

The 32-year-old has not played a competitive match since losing in five sets to Dominic Thiem in the semi-finals of the French Open and preferred to spend time at home with his family in Serbia.  

The winner of four Wimbledon singles titles looked like he was still getting used to slippery grass on Tuesday. Despite that occasional stumble, Djokovic looked every bit of what one would expect from a 15-time major winner. 

Twenty-three-year-old clay court specialist Garin also won the French Open junior title in 2013. He had reached the second round at Roland Garros this year and after the Paris event, he achieved a career-high world ranking of 32. He, however, was no match for Djokovic on the grass. 

The Serb went on to win 6-2, 6-4 to move into the next stage of the preparatory tournament for his Wimbledon sojourn. 

After his victory in the opening match, Djokovic mentioned, “Well, I mean, Wimbledon is for me and probably for many players the greatest, the most important tournament in the world, and it was a huge turning point for me last year coming off from a surgery and dropping out of top 20 to win Wimbledon. It meant a lot for my confidence and just the quality of my tennis.” 

Meanwhile, he sounded a bit perplexed on the Wimbledon organizers for handing Roger Federer the number two seeding ahead of Rafa Nadal at the annual showpiece tennis event. 

“… that's their rules and you have got to respect it although it is a little bit surprising to be honest, although it’s Roger (Federer). I mean, Roger is, you know, the greatest of all time and of course he won most Wimbledon titles than any player in history, and if anyone deserves it, it is him. But at the same time, you know, it is (Rafa) Nadal he is kind of taking over the second seed, you know.” 

Although the other three major tournaments all determine their seeding to the official world rankings but Wimbledon uses its own formula to dictate the order, combining ranking points with form in grass-court competitions. 

Meanwhile, Nadal too took potshots at the burning issue and told Spanish television channel Moviestar on Monday, “Wimbledon is the only tournament of the year that does it like this.” 

“It’s not only about my particular case. There have been many occasions when players have played well all year on all surfaces but Wimbledon does not respect the ranking they have earned.” 

He further mentioned,“And for this reason they get more complicated draws.” 

Interestingly, Nadal is yet to play an official match on grass this year while Federer warmed up for Wimbledon last week by winning his 10th title at the grass-court tournament in Halle.