@joekapa
OK, sorry about the delay for this, I am not around due to pre-contest training and my bodybuilding competitions, and I will most likely be leaving this site by the end of the year once I finish up, but you wanted my thoughts about Djokovic and I will honor your request. Imagine...Your whole life growing up, you work towards one goal, and that is being the best tennis player in the world, being number one and winning Wimbledon – That was what the world was like when Djokovic started first watching tennis, the first ever event he watched while his country was going through the most difficult time in its history, but as he watched his hero Sampras triumph at Wimbledon again and again, everything was changing. Sampras was changing tennis, it was becoming more than just about winning Wimbledon and becoming number one, it was becoming about being the GOAT. Pete had a different mindset to the ones that can before him, he wanted to achieve greatness in a truly definitive way, compiling record after record, he was the one that started to deepen the emphasis on slams in becoming the GOAT, the year end number ones, the weeks at number one, the domination of Wimbledon. Sampras was changing the goal posts and redefining what greatness meant. As Djokovic matured, watching his idol hold all the big records, he was leaving the war that plagued his childhood behind, but little did he know at the time that he was about to step straight into the middle of an even bigger war, one that would be deeply entwined in his adult life and long remembered after he is gone.
A war between two titans of the game that had been waging already for several years, and nothing like it had been seen before. Roger and Rafa were deeply entangled in their own personal war for greatness, with the silhouette of Pete in the background. For Novak, he had two choices, the first was to step aside and allow these two legends to make history, or he refuses to bow down and wants to become the legend he always dreamed of when he was child...For him the choice was obvious. Roger at that point was redefining tennis, he knew that if he was to ascend to the throne that everyone was expecting him to, and surpass Pete, he had to do the one thing that Pete couldn’t do, and that is win Roland Garros. To take him to the pinnacle, he needed a more complete resume that even the great Sampras before him, and it took immense mental fortitude, drive, willpower, determination for Roger to set and then pursue year after year such ambitious goals for himself...however we all know that Rafa was growing into the Clay GOAT and thwarting Roger, and not only thwarting him, but in the process building up his own legacy. Roger and Rafa was two equal, and opposing forces that powerfully clashed with ferocity on the court, and in the record books. All surface domination, winning all slams, stock piling masters events – they were adding even more to the GOAT requirements than even Pete did. Their compelling rivalry, and ability to push each to shockingly insane levels left everyone else in aftermath.
Novak pretty began his career surrounded by these two supernovas, a completely unprecedented situation. He fought them, got beaten, came back stronger, got beaten again, and came back stronger again. The more they showed their superior play, the more lessons he learnt, it was baptism by fire, he was being moulded by Roger and Rafa. They began to create the Novak that we now know, and as he got better, as he started to increase his level, as he got stronger, he forged with them two of the greatest rivalries ever seen in the history of the game – He had no choice, Fedal had taken the landscape that Pete had put together, and turned it upside down. Now Novak knew that he needed everything they had, the Slam record, weeks at number one, the career slam, the WTFs, the year ends, the masters titles, the all surface domination. Anything less would be seen as a failure, the stakes had become so high, the expectations so grand. He kicked, scratched and clawed his way up the mountain, but those scars that Roger and Rafa gave him in battle were slowly building up. Roland Garros...If ever he wanted to have his name to be said in the same breath as theirs, he couldn’t have a gap that big in his resume, even if he put together outstanding records everywhere. It drove him on, losing those epics to Roger, Rafa and Stan in Paris, but everything was building up inside, almost like a coiled spring just waiting to be released. Living every minute of your professional life chasing two of the greatest players to have ever played the game, while also thinking about the legacies of Pete, and even Laver, it has to take a toll...it just has to. The mental, emotional, and physical burden you have to go through day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after year, and have the heart of a lion to keep taking the beatings, the setbacks, the heartbreaks, and then to finally hold that ever elusive RG title. To capture that unicorn, after looking in the mirror, looking into your eyes and telling yourself that you are good enough even when there are the doubters and naysayers that say or hope you never will. RG released everything out of his system in a powerful avalanche of relief.
RG had become like a double edged sword, because in his relentless pursuit to capture the title, Novak created without a doubt the greatest 18 months ever in the history of the game, Roger and Rafa had set the standards of what he must need to do, if he ever dared to walk amongst them. The all court surface domination, the masters titles haul, the WTF haul, slams on all surfaces...you simply were not allowed a weak point. To stand amongst them, almost destroyed Novak. I don’t think he ever truly recovered since RG, that spring uncoiled within and everything was released. So you ask me why Novak is the way he is now, it is because you can only fight so hard and so passionately for so long, it is in this flaw that legends likes Roger, Rafa and Novak truly leave their legacy behind, because it is in this you see their human side, and understand it was a human who put together a superhuman effort.
If there was not a Roger and a Rafa, there would never have been a Novak
