Novak Djokovic has found "food for the soul" to aid his comeback from one of the toughest losses of his career, something which may help his defence of the Dubai Open title in the coming week.
The seven-time former Grand Slam champion has relived some of his Serbian childhood memories to help overcome the pain from the loss of the Australian Open title last month.
The popular tournament here will see Djokovic's first return to the ATP Tour since that Melbourne disappointment and has already sparked a candour and an openness about his recovery.
"After the Australian Open I have done a lot of things and went to the places that I haven't seen for a long time, since my childhood," Djokovic said.
"I reconnected again with my ... period of growing up, and spent time with the family. So that's something that has given me a lot of food for the soul, if I can call it that way, and a lot of positive life energy which I can hopefully transfer to the court now."
Djokovic admits his semi-final loss to Stanislas Wawrinka in five close sets was hard to handle, which is partly why he has taken "quite a bit of time off", more than four weeks altogether.
"I have had only five matches this year, and it's going to be challenging for me to go out on the court and to find a way to play these kind of match situations," he admitted. "Because I haven't had many matches this year for sure.
"That's why I have to be extra careful because it is totally different when you get on the court and have a match in front of thousands of people," Djokovic added, emphasising that even three weeks of hard practice is no guarantee of quality or even of survival in the matches before a likely semi-final with Roger Federer, five times a former champion here.
He has been grabbing every possible practice partner in the build-up to the tournament, hoping he can re-create the feeling of real competition.
