Getty Image / Christian Lewing-Corbis
After two decades, the era of the big three in men’s tennis of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic is finally nearing the end. Novak Djokovic’s withdrawal from the French Open on Tuesday due to a torn meniscus suffered in a come-from-behind five-set win over Francisco Cerundolo in Monday’s Round of 16 is just another sign that day is quickly approaching.
While it’s sad to see the three greatest men’s tennis players impact waning, with Federer already retired, Nadal playing his likely last French Open match, a place he dominated like no one ever has anywhere else, last week, and Djokovic no longer being the definite best player in the world, news of Djokovic’s withdrawal is telling us another thing.
The fact that Novak Djokovic fought through a torn meniscus, pretty much an impossible injury to deal with as a tennis player, and won a five-set match that took 4 hours and 39 minutes speaks to the incredible mental toughness that Djokovic has shown his entire career.
I can’t think of another individual sport athlete that ever snatched victory from the jaws of defeat as consistently as Novak Djokovic has over the last two decades. Oftentimes, he would be playing terrible tennis for a set or two, and surely the match was lost. And then, he would flip a switch and he would become a cyborg. His incredible performance in set tiebreaks, where Djokovic set a Grand Slam record with over a dozen consecutive wins in such situations, shows his incredible mental toughness.
That’s the mental toughness he surely had to lean on to beat Cerundolo on Monday despite a serious injury that threatens to keep him out of Wimbledon and the Summer Olympics back at Roland Garros in Paris this summer. It’s probable that the knee swelled up after his match, hence him being able to finish the Cerundolo match but being unable to take the court against Casper Ruud in Wednesday’s quarterfinal.
It’s that mental toughness that separated the big three of Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal from their peers. The three dominated multiple generations of players, and essentially wiped out one generation of players that came on tour from 2008-2015 from winning a meaningful number of Grand Slams. At a certain point, all three of them lost a step physically, and they just kept winning.
It’s simply astonishing what the three accomplished. Novak Djokovic has 24 Grand Slam titles, Nadal has 22, and Federer has 20. Pete Sampras is next with 14. The fact that they won so many while largely playing against each other is sensational.
Even though he won’t win this Grand Slam, he proved why he’s won so many with his toughness on Monday.