Danish teenager defeats Novak Djokovic to announce himself on the world stage for the first time in nearly six years
If you were picking a sports hero of 2015 – or a historical one – there’s a good chance you might have picked Novak Djokovic’s name. At 32, the world’s number one tennis player is a decade older than Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic himself. It would take him four more years to surpass anyone else on this list. But if he does in the coming years, it’s almost inevitable he will win another Grand Slam title. He has already reached at least the quarter-final round of three of them. Just last month, he won his seventh title at Wimbledon, his first since 2009.
The former world champion and two-time Grand Slam winner has also won a record five ATP titles, including the Australian Open and the US Open, six Masters 1000 titles, four U.S. Open titles, and three French Open crowns. He has been the first man to post multiple Grand Slam tournament victories in back-to-back seasons, and in so doing, he has become the first man on the world stage since Federer in 2006 to achieve such a feat twice. He has also done it more than once in four different sports. For a tennis player to be on the world stage again, he cannot just be a number one singles player anymore.
Away from the courts, Djokovic became the first tennis player ever to finish each of his four Grand Slam tournament victories in a single year by winning one, two, or all three without a loss. He is also the first tennis player to record an undefeated home performance in each of the U.S. Opens, Australian Opens, French Opens, and Wimbledon. He is the only tennis player to accomplish the feat in three consecutive years, from 2013 to 2014, with a win in each of them. He has done it twice in his first year, and five times in his career. He is the only tennis player to post a U.S. Open victory and