Novak Djokovic, after a year of exile in which he was unable to participate in the 2022 Australian Open, took revenge by winning his tenth Grand Slam in Melbourne, as well as his 22nd in total, to join the Mallorcan Rafael Nadal in the first Market Stall.
The Serb, who had to live with a muscle problem throughout the tournament, after suffering a bit in the early days of the tournament, then largely dominated the tournament by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas in three sets in the final.
The Serbian tennis player, after his success, gave a nice interview to an Australian boy with a drink in sight. Djokovic, after asking the little interviewer how old he was, talked about what he was doing at his age, eight years old, in the room of his house in Belgrade.
“When I was eight years old, I was in my room, in Belgrade, Serbia, where I come from, and I was building a makeshift Wimbledon trophy out of materials I had in my room. I was building some kind of toy and playing with myself and looking in the mirror, holding this trophy and saying that one day I would become a Wimbledon champion.
So that was the tournament I always dreamed of winning,” the 22-time Grand Slam winner recounted during this special interview. In the continuation of this talk, Djokovic also admitted that he never thought he would win ten times in Melbourne: “I always wanted to win as many Grand Slams as possible, but I never thought I would win as many Australian Opens, no.” Speaking of the Australian Open, immediately after his success against Tsitsipas, the 35-year-old Serb had these words: “It has been one of the most difficult tournaments of my life, considering what happened last year.”
Djokovic and Nadal are still operating at a high level
Ben Rothenberg and Tumaini Carayol recently got together to discuss the gulf in quality between Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and the Next Gen of men’s tennis.
“Seriously, on one hand, I think Djokovic is this good. Yes. He’s 35 years old. Yes, he’s old or whatever. Same with Nadal. Yes, they’re old. But like the level he’s playing is still incredible and still, you know, he’s still so good.
And, you know, regardless, he’s better than he’s a better tennis player than these guys. He would you know, that’s just clear. He’s just much better,” Carayol said. “When you think a few years ago like Thiem having to like take down Djokovic in five sets at Roland Garros in you know, a hurricane and you compare it to how some draws are now and not just Tsitsipas, for example you know Khachanov making the semifinal,” he said.
