Novak Djokovic apologised to the journalists after arriving late for his press conference on Thursday.

The Serb overcame Corentin Moutet but visibly struggled with a minor fitness issue. The physio was called during the match and Djokovic revealed that he had to take injections after his straight-sets triumph.

“Look, the recovery time is not much longer, I feel like,” Djokovic said when asked about how he recovers at 38.

“I mean, I'm pretty fit at the moment. I don't feel like I have any major issues. Although it took me, like, almost an hour to deal with the blister and the bleeding that I had.

“So they had to use the injections and draw the blood out and then inject something to dry out the blister. So that was, you know, not really a pleasant process. But it is something that, you know, anyone who has blisters that are bleeding has to do it.

“So that's why I'm also late with you guys, and I'm sorry for that. But I don't think it's going to be an issue for me to recover.

“I mean, three hours was a lot of running, straight sets, but three-hour match is a good three-hour session. Good thing about slams obviously you have a day in between. So plenty of time to recover and get ready for next one.”