The dJoker who became King
As a Federer fan first, and a Nadal admirer second, I still acknowledge that Djokovic might be the greatest we have seen, and may ever see.
This isn’t about him winning a mind-boggling 23rd Grand Slam. Or even his near-total decimation of the opposition on the way to doing it.
He moves like a gazelle and slaps the ball harder than Will Smith would, at an age nearly double of some of his competition. But nah, that’s not it either.
It is the fact that none of it feels surprising.
You always expect greatness from the greatest male tennis player of all time.
Trust me, for the die-hard Federer fan in me, this hasn’t been easy to acknowledge.
Among the Big Three, Novak has always been a clear third favorite for me.
Don’t ask me why.
All these years, I found several reasons to justify it. “He has an ‘attitude’”, I would say, even when there were many a Insta reels & memes to the contrary. “His game isn’t as elegant!”. I know it’s not true — his drop shots are a marvel. And this wasn’t a fine arts competition anyway. “He is an anti-vaxxer” - OK, I still don’t understand why he doggedly held that stance but I know I would have probably respected the same grit way more in another person.
The real reason is plain simple. He was Federer’s arch-nemesis and his rising star shone brightly as the light of Federer’s prime dimmed.
But some truths, one must accept.
What Djokovic has achieved and continues to achieve is beyond phenomenal. To think that he was disqualified in bizarre fashion from the US Open in 2020, and forced to sit out of Aus & US Open (NoVax gate) in 2022, in a year in which he won the Wimbledon. The above situations notwithstanding, the man could have easily had twenty five slams by now.
While the stats tilt in Novak’s favor too now — slams, head-to-head against Fedal, etc. — it is his ungiving hunger and grit, and how it brings it into play when most needed, that sets him apart. He has nothing left to prove, yet he carries on — sacrificing, stretching, sweating and persevering in the toughest of battles.
I wonder what keeps this hunger going. I always have. But after all these years, something’s changed. Now I am rooting for this hunger to thrive. I want to see how far the human spirit can go. And I have a feeling I am in for a spectacle.
I know I cautiously called him the Greatest Male Tennis Player of All Time. But, dare I say, the way he is going, he is going to knock off both Male and Tennis from that epithet very soon.
