Newcombe: "Djokovic is really going to struggle the first six months of next year"
 

http://www.theage.com.au/sport/tenni...208-1olbq.html


Views on Djokovic, Nadal and Federer from John Newcombe (7 singles grand slam titles, 17 doubles grand slam titles):

“Djokovic is really going to struggle the first six months of next year - he’s really knocked himself out…He’s just won so many matches, and it’s been pretty obvious, even at the US Open, he was struggling. I even thought he was struggling at Wimbledon against Bernard [Tomic], but he was able to pull himself together…He was very lucky to win the US Open, because Roger should never have lost that match from where he was. And now since the US Open, there’s injuries, a sore shoulder, a sore back, and when you watch him playing, he’s running on three cylinders, so I’d say that his body, it’s given in. It’s not a lot of time to suddenly suck it up and start the year again and defend everything that he won last year, so I think it will be a superhuman effort for him to repeat the six months that he had. It was an amazing run, and that is very hard to defend.”

“It’s not going to surprise me if, by the end of July next year, Roger is very close to being No.1 again.”

“With Rafa, it’s like the heavyweight champion of the world that’s never been knocked out, and suddenly, gets knocked out six times within the space of six months by Djokovic. He doesn’t have the same self-belief any more. All of a sudden he’s having to face things, questions, that he’s never doubted. So it’s a question of can he get his head around this whole thing, and come back to where he was?”

Federer for the Golden CYGS. :)

Djokovic defintly won't defend what he did last year but he will manage with some semis, finals and wins.

Even though I like both Djokovic and Nadal, I think that's a pretty fair assessment. I guess we'll see in a few weeks or so...

Wouldn't surprise me if Djokovic's only slam win next year turns out to be the USO. Like Federer only defended the USO in 2008 after winning the AO/Wimbledon/USO trio in 2007.

but he also defended Wimbledon/US in 2005, 2006 and AO/Wimbledon/US in 2007

I actually see Djokovic defending the AO and US titles next year, not sure about Wimbledon, tho

Djokovic should be good next year, he's young and those injuries were nothing that rest can't take care of.

Djokovic will win the French and the US. Del Potro/Murray will win the AO sparking talk of a repeat of djokovic's this year, and then Federer will bag the Olympics and Wimbledon.

We really need to bookmark all these predictions older players are making about Noel, Roger and Ralphie, and see as the year progresses.

Nope. He will be back to sweeping the season again just like he did this year. I do not buy his injury claims or his claims of fatigue,either. He will be fine.

newcome doubts djokovic and nadal could maintain/reclaim their positions but he believes federer could move up close to the no. 1 position despite being 5, 6 years older than his rivals ? :)

He's the only one of the three not in a total mess right now. Neither of the top two guys came CLOSE to making it out of the RR stage in London, and while Rafa contributed to the davis cup win, I am having doubts about his ability to recover mentally from the results this year.

If Fed starts the year well, with a possible W in AO, who knows what could happen?

Should be interesting to see how Djokovic does in 2012. Hope he comes out strong and has a repeat year.

Interestingly, my longtime hitting partner was courtside when Newcombe retired from competitive play after losing a very tight match to Bjorn Borg (late 70's WCT).

He was extremely impressed with Newcombe's "self-awarness" as he stepped up to the mike after, apologies to the fans, and openly stated that his time had come, that he no longer had what it took to stay at the top level of tennis...wondering if Newk is really onto something...certainly been there before...

I hope federer will do well in 2012 but tennis is a very physical sports and being older than your rivals doesn't help, that is for sure. to pull this off, federer would have to raise his level so that his matches against the top players next year won't become a battle of fitness.

I agree. But, this would depend on if this major rivals are able to make it deep enough to face Federer... if he gets that far as well. And, who better equiped to make the matches more about shotmaking than Fitness? :)

The thing about the calendar is: Apart from the Australian Open, all the majors are within 3 months of each other. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he didn't bomb the first 6 months to give himself time to recover and build up to the slam season.

Sampras did this to great effect throughout his career. It's all about the June-September.

Well, Newcombe may be totally wrong in the end, but seeing the respective forms of the top 3 at the end of the season, it's hard to fault his logic right now. Sure, Djokovic's got a huge lead coming into the 2012 season, but he will need to be much more reliable than he'e ever been at defending his titles (at the moment, he's only marginally more succesfull than Nadal is outside clay, and that is saying something, considering that the Spaniard never managed to defend a non-clay event :shock:). Not saying that he will lose all 10 of them, but I would be surprised if he keeps, say, even half of them. Besides, history shows that it's mighty hard to win at least two slams in a year after managing a 'small slam'. Look how many players have managed to do it since the beginning of the open era...

So yes, Federer faces quite an uphill battle (a 5,460 pts deficit), but a win at the AO with Djokovic going out at the semi-final stage and he would close almost half this gap, so who knows? The AO sure looks crucial, though. We'll see.

2012 is gonna be majestic.

I think Nadal will regain #1, and Fed and Djoker will battle for #2. Nadal will again defend RG. One of the Big 3 will take Wimbledon.

As for USO and AO, I think there will be a new first-timer taking at least one of those.

Last tennis season before the world ends.

Roger had better make this one good..........