Djokovic, now with 20 career Grand Slam titles, suggested that the three-way tie with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal could be broken at the U.S. Open.
The Big Three now have 20 apiece. It is a development that would have seemed unlikely to Novak Djokovic as he made his way onto the tour in the aughts with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal racking up Grand Slam singles titles. Federer was entrenched at No.1 and had found his groove after an up-and-down start. Nadal, a genuine prodigy, was already all but unbeatable on clay courts in his teens and would soon challenge Federer on every surface. They were a duopoly, the dominant topic in men’s tennis for good reason. Djokovic was on the outside peering in, but he was also on the outside, gathering information and inspiration. “They are, I think, the reason I am where I am today,” he said on Sunday after winning the Wimbledon men’s singles title by defeating Matteo Berrettini,6-7 (4),6-4,6-4,6-3. “They have helped me to realize what I need to do in order to improve to get stronger mentally, physically, tactically. When I broke into the top 10 for the first time, I lost for three or four years most of the big matches that I played against these two guys and something shifted at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. The last 10 years has been an incredible journey that is not stopping here.” On the court, he caught them long ago, taking the lead in their head-to-head series and also taking them on and out in their fiefdoms. Djokovic is the only man to defeat Federer three times at Wimbledon; the only man to defeat Nadal twice at the French Open. He, not Federer or Nadal, is the man who has held the No.1 spot for the most total weeks in the history of the ATP rankings. He is also the only man to win all nine of the Masters 1000 singles titles, something he has managed twice. But it took Djokovic until Sunday to catch up to his two measuring sticks in the race that has come, rightly or wrongly, to define tennis players to the viewing public. Grand Slam titles are the coin of the realm in professional tennis, and the Big Three are now dead even with 20 each. It is a stunning collective achievement that no one saw coming when Pete Sampras set the former record of 14 by winning his final tournament, the 2002 U.S. Open. Sampras, who had broken Roy Emerson’s mark of 12, certainly had no inkling of what was to come despite losing to Federer in their only meeting, at Wimbledon in 2001 in the fourth round. “I’m just amazed at this generation,” Sampras told me in a recent interview. “If you would have asked when I walked off with 14 majors if three guys would pass me in the next 15 to 19 years, I would have said, no way.
