Criminally underrated but probably the Greatest, Happy 33rd Birthday Novak!

He is Federer's biggest nemesis on grass. He is probably the only one who can give Rafa a run for his money on clay and he is almost unbeatable on concrete. Is he or isn't he the greatest player of this generation or maybe the greatest of all time is a debate to be settled but for another day. The statistics are there for everyone to see but what needs to be looked at is the versatility the man dishes out. If we have to describe each of the big 3 in one word, what would they be? Federer would be magistic or genius. Rafa would be a warrior or a fighter. What would Djokovic be? There is only one word that comes to my mind and that is 'robotic'. Djokovic is a machine that never runs out of gas and very seldom fails to deliver. Everything Novak does seems to be encoded and it looks as if he has answers for almost everything the opponent throws at him. Someone was asked to differentiate between Roger and Novak. The answer was very vocal. He said that Roger gives you a bit of air but makes you feel like you don't know how to play this game but after playing two games against Novak, you feel like you have no lungs left! Fitness is the most extraordinary thing I find in Djokovic. If you are the opponent, you get absolutely nothing. His reach is second to none. The winners he manages to squeeze are the ones where majority of the players would fail to put racquet on ball. Djokovic's forehand is stronger than most of them and his backhand is one of the best we have seen in the history of the game. Dare I say that Novak is the best returner of serve we have seen since eternity. Enormous mental strength attached with an outrageous skillset that he has developed with hardwork over the time are two of the biggest aspects of Serbian's greatness. 
When he became the number one player in the world for the first time in 2011, he was labelled as overrated and undeserving which drove me nuts. Rafa and Roger were both dethroned by a new kid which didn't go very well with tennis public, the effects of which we witness till date. One has become accustomed to witnessing Novak competing with the crowd against him. You see it all over the world, whether against Roger Federer in southwest London, Rafael Nadal in Paris or, a few months back, Dominic Thiem in Melbourne. This has been the drumbeat of his life. 
It is arguably agreed that Novak has experienced the best 12 months of a tennis player's career when he won all the four grand slams from Wimbledon 2015 to Roland Garros 2016. With 17 grand slams under his belt, just 2 behind Rafa and 3 behind the record held by Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic is undoubtedly one of the greatest players to have graced this sport. When it comes to debating, Djokovic's name falls by the wayside. It will not be an overstatement to say that Novak Djokovic is criminally underrated. I use the word 'underrated' because he is never included in the 'all time' debate which is as crazy as it can get. You might not like his 'robotics' but he is well on his way in becoming the most decorated tennis player of all time. Yet irrespective of what your opinion shouts, Djokovic and everything he embodies needs to be appreciated in the world of tennis. 

Happy 33rd Birthday Novak!❤️

Comments

  1. Unknown22 May 2020 at 23:08

    Nice evaluation, comparison & worthy appreciation.

    ReplyDelete

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