Djokovic’s Stunning 2015
View(s):Joining the ranks of an immortal in any activity, means life’s mission fulfilled. It has been predicted that Serbia’s Novak Djokovic will leave the game as the greatest Tennis player ever. This year he took one step closer to it and joined Australian Grand-Slam winner Rod Laver and Swiss maestro Roger Federer to become third person ever to have played in all four Grand Slam men’s finals in one year. 2015 will end with Djokovic holding number one position with 15285 points. He will be the top contender for the year-end Master’s finals in London. Andy Murray who is two in the men’s ranking, has only a little over half of Djokovic’s points.
Djokovic has won ten major titles which includes three Grand-Slams and has been only short of one match from getting the annual Grand-Slam. In the French-Open final, Stanislaus Wawrinka stopped Djokovic’s march to the Grand-Slam. In the women’s field, Serena Williams was even closer with her commendable feat of two matches short of Grand-Slam this year. Djokovic’s last title was the Paris-Open last week beating Andy Murray. This is his 4th year as the world’s number one player, in five years and being featured in 14 finals, it is truly a stunning record.
Big earner
Roger Federer now in his thirties, is believed to have earned $95 millions in prize money. Prize money is what professional players get for winning matches. Djokovic is only 28 has already topped $89 million as of date. He stands to win up to another figure close to three million at the London-Masters. By the time Djokovic gets to the mid thirties, he will be setting a higher benchmark in prize money earnings than Federer. The size of the prize money has also got a great deal bigger in the last three years. Djokovic earned $16 million this season which is another record!
London-Masters – qualifiers
After the Paris-Open the eight qualifiers were confirmed for the 2015 London-Masters. Rafael Nadal made big strides and put himself into position 6 cementing his participation in London. Kei Nishikori the only Asian has squeezed into 8th position. Others are Djokovic, Murray, Federer, Wawrinka, Tomas Berdych and David Ferrer. That is seven from Europe and one from Asia. Undoubtedly, Europe’s strength in Tennis can be attributed to the appearance of the East European players. Right now the big losers seem to be the two Americas and Australia. Studies are underway to determine the cause of this decline.
Good image of Novak
Winning at all costs has invaded sports. With great personal strength and discipline, Djokovic is holding the values of fair play and fighting ‘doping’ in sports. This is making the sports arena ever so popular as in the times of ancient Greece. After infamous episodes of over 40 years, one by one, every sport has been taking the toll with doping. The popular belief now is that the cheating athletes are ahead of the testing methods. This is bad news. Money in sports is the cause of it. Luckily, Tennis due to the nature of the game, does not give an advantage through doping. However, there have been suspensions in Tennis. The few detected with prohibited substances were all stagnating over the 250 mark in ranking, without progress. They are more susceptible to abuse.
The bigger source of earning for elite players is sponsorship. This is declining. Sponsors are cautious not to get their products coupled with scandals. This could be the ‘injection’ to stop doping. In this front, Djokovic has a clean record above all suspicions and could be considered another role model in sports and we need more sportsman of his caliber.
Djokovic’s Skills
Power and speed of stroke-making impresses many in Tennis. Many sports sell promoting these two aspects. In Tennis most astonishing feats often go unnoticed. They are the body reaction speed of players and speed of movements to coin a rally effectively, without loss of efficiency in tactics or strokes. This is what makes a player versatile. Djokovic has been mastering this for a long time and it is peaking now and he is almost unstoppable. As the number one how else could he have doubled the number of points of the number 2 in world-class Tennis? His win/loss record for 2015 is 78 to 5.
Any good player has a specialty to win. I had the good fortunate to play against the Late Bernard Pinto of Sri Lanka. As a serve and volley specialist he came to net after a hard serve covering the return angles effectively. He was so efficient in doing that, one wondered what reached the net first, the ball or Bernard? It was another good example of a player using his specialty to win. Body-speed enhanced all his tactics and it exceeded his stroke making ability. Simplest of the tactics are the most reliable and can be immensely effective with reaction speed.
Djokovic’s game and tactics are difficult to be cracked, even by the best of players. I predict that the best of his Tennis is still to come. In a recent interview he has implied that there is no such thing as limits in his mind, ‘I’ll just keep going’ and declared 2015 was ‘the best year of my life.” Novak Djokovic’s strength rests in the core of his personality and dedication as a sportsman.
* George Paldano, Former int. player; Accredited Coach of Germany; National, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup coach–. gptennis.ceylon@gmail.com