Novak Djokovic after 20th Grand Slam tournament victory: "My journey continues"
It was not a work of art, not a masterpiece, and certainly not the best Novak Djokovic tennis on the sacred lawn of Wimbledon. But even with a hard-won 6: 7 (4: 7), 6: 4, 6: 4, 6: 3 win over the brave Italian Matteo Berrettini, the indomitable "Djoker" as the leading tennis player of the present has a rendezvous with eternity closed.
by Jörg Allmeroth
last edit: Jul 11, 2021, 09:55 pm
Exactly at 6:34 p.m., after 203 minutes of an exciting but not always high-class final duel, Djokovic sank to the ground as the winner of the 20th Grand Slam record title and sixth Wimbledon Cup - and yet he was on top like never before his dazzling career. “It's a moment that you want to hold on to forever,” said Djokovic, who, as usual, enjoyed a few blades of grass from Center Court after the win, “every Wimbledon victory is an indescribable experience. And my journey continues. "
You have to go far back in the history books to classify Djokovic's performance: Only five players managed to win the first three Grand Slam tournaments of the season without exception, Jack Crawford in 1933, Donald Budge in 1938, Lew Hoad in 1956 and Road Laver in 1962 and 1969. Only Budge and Laver then marched to the calendar Grand Slam, the triumph of all four majors in one season. In the modern tennis times, the professional era, no one has ever achieved a comparable coup - neither the hat trick from the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon nor the Grand Slam march in one season. Now Djokovic is just missing the US Open title to complete this goal.
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Djokovic at eye level with Federer and Nadal
But for other reasons too, this July 11th marks a turning point in men's tennis, it is a really historic date in this sport. Since Djokovic won his first Grand Slam title on the other side of the world, in Melbourne, Australia, in 2008, he has always been the hunter of the establishment, the pursuer of the honorable Messrs Federer and Nadal - now he has also got 20 Grand Slam titles Eye level with the former sole rulers in the tennis cosmos. The Serb knew early on that he would not get the Swiss maestro and the Spanish matador in the global popularity ratings, so his urge and drive was to outdo them in the bare data, numbers and facts. "The fact that I have now caught up with these two legendary players means everything to me," said Djokovic. "It was a lifelong dream to be the player with the greatest records."
It was a bumpy road for Djokovic to this sixth title in the theater of dreams. The nervous pressure to want to achieve his big goal with all his might was noticeable in the number 1 player. In the first set he lost a 5-2 lead and lost the tiebreak, in the second set he let Berrettini come dangerously close after a 4-0 lead, but was able to equalize the 1-1 draw. Time and again Djokovic was literally distracted by background noises, demanded more support from the audience (“I can't hear you”), seemed emotionally unstable, extremely tense. Only in the fourth set did Djokovic play more compelling, more aggressive, more self-confident and then also made his victory perfect
Even if Nadal and Federer have drawn their attention selectively in recent years - Nadal as the lone series winner in Paris, Federer with Grand Slam coups after injury breaks - the old and new lawn king Djokovic has been the absolute dominant player in the tour business since 2015 at the latest . At the beginning of that season he won 15 of the 26 major competitions played (Wimbledon 2020 was canceled), between 2015 and 2016 he even won the four largest industry tournaments in a row - the coup was then called the "Djoko Slam."
McEnroe on the Grand Slam race: "Djokovic will go a long way"
The power balance of 20 Grand Slam titles is unlikely to last for a long time. At 34 years and almost two months, Djokovic is still in full creative power, especially at the Grand Slams, the rivals simply hardly find any weaknesses in the movement and endurance artist. Meanwhile, Federer has the end of his great career in mind, in Wimbledon it was revealed in his knockout against the Pole Hubert Hurkacz how difficult, almost impossible, another Grand Slam victory run could be. Nadal, the third in the league of extraordinary gentlemen, had not even started in the All England Club, his body no longer allows the non-stop stress program in the tour treadmill. “Djokovic will go a long way. He will set a new and strong record, ”says John McEnroe, the former US superstar.
Djokovic's ambitions by no means end at the boundaries of the Center Court. Since the beginning of last year, the Serb, who once started playing tennis in the chaos of war in the Balkans, has also declared war on the established tennis system - and thus in particular on his athletic opponents Federer and Nadal. In 2020, the "Djoker" had often got lost in his ambition to be a kind of alternative union leader and representative of his colleagues' interests. With his Adriatic tour at the height of the corona pandemic, he drew displeasure as well as with dubious statements on the subject of vaccinations or the establishment of the "Professional Tennis Players Association" on the eve of the US Open. There, in New York, the height of his calamities followed when the world's number one player was disqualified for hitting a linesman with the ball in a fit of anger. "The most amazing thing about all of this is how Novak keeps putting away all these problems and criticism," says Boris Becker, his former trainer, "he really is a phenomenon."
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