Is Novak Djokovic the Greatest of All Time? Maybe! With 23 Grand Slam titles, the Serbian should easily be the GOAT. His closest competitor is Rafael Nadal, with 22 majors. Roger Federer (20) is a little further away, and Pete Sampras (14) is a long way off.
So, Djokovic should be the GOAT on the number of titles won. Is the number of titles the sole criterion to decide the greatest? No, because the variables are different in each era. The competition is drastically different, so two decades can never be the same.
The biggest disruptor has been technology. From wood to steel shafts to carbon fibre, racquets have undergone a revolution. Modern-day racquets are lighter and more powerful.
How tennis has changed
Even the playing surfaces have changed. Wimbledon may still be played on grass and the French Open on the red shale of Roland Garros, but the other two majors — the Australian Open at Melbourne and the US Open at the Flushing Meadows — are played on synthetic surfaces. Bounce is true on these surfaces, and speed and skid will depend on the types of balls used.
How can we compare today’s generation to the players of the last century? You could argue the game hasn’t changed essentially. So, the skills required are the same.
Actually, the game has changed. With true bounce, synthetic courts have given rise to a generation of baseline huggers. Can you name a true-blue serve-and-volleyer among the current crop of players? There are none. Most trade shots from the baseline and rush to the net only to put away the winning volleys.
You won’t find anyone in the mould of John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Pete Sampras or even Pat Cash. Federer, who had a fluent serve-volley game, preferred to dictate terms from the baseline even on grass.
The game has changed so much that it’s easy to counter-punch from the baseline. And with high fitness levels, players can trade shots for more than five hours. That’s what Djokovic and Nadal did in their marathon duels.
That brings us back to the question: Is Djokovic the greatest? He could well be the greatest in the modern era. At 36, the Serbian has at least two good years of tennis left, so he can still add many more to his burgeoning bag of majors.
More importantly, his triumphs came at a time when two other great tennis talents plied their trade with tremendous success. Djokovic, Nadal and Federer have 65 Grand Slam titles between them. That makes the last 20 years the most fiercely contested two decades of tennis. And Djokovic leads the pack. That should make him the best of the three.
Federer fans would disagree. They would point to the Swiss player’s sublime strokes and dominance in the post-Sampras era. That’s true, but that, in a way, diminishes the achievements of Nadal and Djokovic. Nadal’s shots may be ungainly, and Djokovic’s game may be metronomic, but in the end, only wins count. Only titles count. And the Serbian has the most number of titles.
How Federer and Nadal pushed Djokovic
The Serbian believes that Federer and Nadal have made him the player he is. “I have always compared myself to these guys because those two are the two greatest rivals I ever had in my career. I have said before many times that they have actually defined me as a player, and all the success that I have, they have contributed to it, in a way, because of the rivalries and the matchups that we had.
“Countless hours of thinking and analysing and what it takes to win against them on the biggest stage for me and my team. It was just those two guys that were occupying my mind for the past 15 years quite a lot. In a professional sense. It’s amazing to know that I’m one ahead of both of them in majors,” Djokovic said after winning his third French Open title.
For a player who turned pro in 2003, it took Djokovic five years to land his first Grand Slam title — the Australian Open. This means the Serbian won 23 majors in 15 years from 2008. That’s an incredible feat!
Djokovic’s talent was never in doubt, although he played the joker on the court with his antics of impersonating other players. Behind that veneer of playfulness lurked a nerveless champion who bided his time. On several occasions, he would race to a two-set lead only to blow it by cramping or running out of steam. A slew of injuries didn’t help either.
A Serbian doctor, who noticed the sudden slump in Djokovic’s energy midway through a match, was sure the tennis star’s gut was the problem. A meeting with Dr Igor Cetojevic in 2010 changed Djokovic’s life: a gluten-free diet followed, and he gave up alcohol. More Grand Slam titles followed, putting him on the road to the pantheon of tennis greats.
As Djokovic realised the importance of taking care of his body, he made the requirements. “I read up on a lot of these things and consulted experts in the field,” the world number one said at a press conference during the Dubai Duty-Free Tennis Championship in March.
He also ferries around an egg-shaped hyperbaric (oxygen) chamber to improve his performance and speed recovery. More controversial is his refusal to vaccinate against COVID-19 — a stance which controversially deprived him of a shot at the Australian Open title last year. Who knows, that could have pushed him to Grand Slam title 24 faster.
A record 388 weeks as world No. 1
Djokovic has spent a record 388 weeks as world No. 1. He was ranked No. 1 in a record 12 different years. With 94 ATP titles and more than $5 million in the bank, what motivates Djokovic?
“I think in the core of my motivation, it’s just a mentality of wanting always to be better than I was yesterday. So on a daily basis or kind of a short-term goal, to always try to improve every aspect of the game ’cause I always believe that there is something to work on.
“I think keeping that kind of a mindset also drives me and drives my team members to really take every tournament as a new challenge, the biggest challenge we have at this moment. I feel like that kind of attitude got me to where I am in terms of achievements in my career,” Djokovic said in Dubai.
The fire of competition continues to burn in the Serbian as he dismantled Norwegian Casper Ruud’s challenge in the French Open final on Sunday. It was a typical Djokovic demolition. After Ruud dominated the early exchanges, the Serbian shifted into his regular routine of chasing down every ball until his rival ran out of steam.
For more than three hours, the 36-year-old matched Ruud, 12 years younger, stroke for stroke in grinding rallies. An exhausted Ruud hung in there, but there wasn’t enough to beat Djokovic.
Does the 24th major make him the greatest male tennis player? Djokovic refuses to believe it. “I don’t want to say that I am the greatest because I feel, I’ve said it before, it’s disrespectful towards all the great champions in different eras of our sport that was played in completely different ways than it is played today,” he said after the final. “I feel like each great champion of his own generation has left a huge mark, a legacy, and paved the way for us to be able to play this sport on such a great stage worldwide.”
Despite his humility, Djokovic will soon become the greatest of his generation if he keeps up his hunger for more Grand Slam titles. He is halfway to becoming the first man to win the Grand Slam, claiming all four majors in the same season, since Rod Laver in 1969. In 2021, the Serbian won the first three before losing to Daniil Medvedev in the US Open final.
“I still feel inspired to play the best tennis in these tournaments the most… I look forward already to Wimbledon,” he said. If Djokovic wins, it could well be Grand Slam title number 24, making him the most successful player along with Margaret Court.
After that, there won’t be a debate on who’s the GOAT.
