djokovic records
Novak Djokovic is undoubtedly one of the best tennis players in history. My take as an outside observer (in the days of the Big 3 there were other tour favourites, from Marat Safin to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga) is this: the debate over which of the “Big Three” is the biggest is pretty futile. It is clear that both fans and many experts always want to reveal the best, but in general this is the same as comparing the degree of greatness, for example, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rubens, Monet and Dali or Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Tolstoy and Chekhov. Everyone is great, everyone has their fans and vice versa, and the same goes for Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, and Rafael Nadal, as well as other tennis legends.
But if we compare the numbers, the Serb, of course, outperformed his rivals. The main part of the significant records was rewritten by him. It is about 23 Grand Slam titles and 389 weeks in the first line of the classification, and seven seasons completed in it. Although Novak did not accumulate a full calendar Slam, he won the four majors in a row (from Wimbledon 2015 to Roland Garros-2016), which was called the Nole Slam, by analogy with the same achievement of Serena Williams, which was called the Serena Slam. Djokovic also became the only tennis player in history to accumulate the “Career Slam” three times, that is, to win each of the major tournaments at least three times. Finally, Novak is the only champion of the nine Masters (and has at least two titles in each one) and holds the record for the total number of victories there: 38 against Rafael Nadal’s 36.
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What will the Serbian do without the main rivals?
And here for Djokovic, who turned 36 this May, the question of increased motivation arises. Federer has already retired and will definitely not return to the professional tour (which is not surprising, because Roger is the oldest of the Troika – he will turn 42 in early August), and Nadal, 37, is not playing this year’s Australian Open due to injury. Rafael did not come to defend the title on the clay courts of Paris, where he is a 14-time champion, first falling out of the top 10 for the first time since April 2005, and then flying out of the top 100 for the first time since 2003. The Spaniard wants to play in 2024, but this may well be more of a farewell tour than a full-fledged comeback for a relatively long time. Consequently, there is no one to threaten Novak’s records in the here and now, and the main rivals he fought throughout his career are leaving the stage.
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Austrian Günther Bresnik, best known as Dominik Thiem’s coach and manager for a long time, shared his opinion on this matter. “I have a theory that rivalries with Federer, Nadal and Murray have led Djokovic to better performances. Of course, this also applies to others. Not only in matches, but also in the training process. And this rivalry is not with Alcaraz. I have always said that Djokovic will lose motivation as soon as the constant competition with Nadal and Federer disappears and he wins 23 Grand Slam titles”, Kleine Zeitung quotes Bresnik.
I think there is some truth in these words. It cannot be said that Novak does not have any motivation for further preparation and performances; in the end, look at the battle he had with Carlos Alcaraz himself in the recent Wimbledon final. By the way, having lost it, Djokovic could not reach one of the records still held by Federer – eight titles at Wimbledon.
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Will Novak’s inner fire burn with the same intensity?
However, all the major peaks in tennis have been taken, and Alcaraz, with all his talent, skill and outlook, cannot be as irritating to the Serb as Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray were. There is simply no such history between them, because the rivalry within the Big Three developed and lasted for about a decade and a half, which is incredibly long for top-class tennis. And with Carlos Novak, with all the desire, he will not be able to spend more than a few years on the Tour. In fact, regardless of the motivation, physiology cannot be fooled, and even in modern tennis and with the most careful attitude to your body, it is impossible to play at a high level until you are 45 years old or even older.
It may be interesting for Djokovic to compete with Alcaras, as well as Medvedev, Rublev, Rune, Sinner, Tsitsipas, Zverev and others, but will this “interesting” be enough to make Novak’s inner fire burn with the same intensity, so that he gives his best in training, sweating hours and hours with them, sacrificing time with his family, etc.? Will Novak be able to stay focused through the long and difficult fights that inevitably await him with the same Alcaraz, Medvedev, etc.? That is the question. And the answer, unfortunately, is no. No, it’s not enough! In the same Wimbledon final, Djokovic could have played better somewhere, but he faltered a bit. This was also pointed out by Patrick Muratoglu, former coach of the legendary Serena Williams.
Novak Djokovic
Photo: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images
“Carlos felt much freer, he could become aggressive at decisive moments. Novak had moments where he could win the match, but he lost them due to mistakes. Constantly being a favorite and looking for unimaginable records – this affects the psychological state. After all, it is a burden. He was too nervous. He needs to find a way to regain peace ”, ESPN quotes Muratoglu.
Djokovic’s greatness in any case will remain forever
In fact, nerves are another factor that could hinder Djokovic. After all, the nervous system wears out over time, just like everything else in the body, and with Novak, it’s been severely tested many times over. Suffice it to remember how many marathon and intense fights he took out of the same Nadal and Federer, even on match points. Let’s see how the Serbian behaves at the US Open, where he will return after being absent last year due to his lack of a coronavirus vaccine. So far, Novak has withdrawn from the Toronto Masters, citing a desire for more rest and recovery after Wimbledon.
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In conclusion, I would like to emphasize once again that Djokovic is, in any case, one of the best tennis players in history, and no possible failure in the following tournaments will ever mark him out. Novak achieved it all through his hard work and fanatical devotion to the game, and for generations to come there was no one who could come close to him, Roger and Rafael consistently playing at such a high level. But how ready a 36-plus-year-old Serb will be to continue plowing without clear goals in the form of records to be broken and main rivals in his career remains an open question.
