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Is Novak Djokovic The Fittest Athlete Of All Time?

First there was Roger Federer, then Rafa Nadal. Tennis was lucky to get one such player. To get two at the same time seemed utterly impossible.

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They won every tournament, broke every record. Their count of grand-slam singles titles stands at 17 for Federer (the men’s record) and 14 for Nadal, equal-second with Pete Sampras. This includes an astonishing nine on the clay in Paris. Federer is a player of mesmerising and destructive brilliance; Nadal has the best topspin ever struck.

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And yet, just when it seemed that only injury or retirement could end this historic duopoly, Novak Djokovic defied all expectation – and belief – to break through and establish himself as better than either. This young man from the tennis hinterland of Serbia took them both on at their peak, and went past them. Their dominance diminished not before his ascendancy, but of it.

Novak Djokovic.
Novak Djokovic.

Novak Djokovic. Photo: Getty Images.

At time of writing, Djokovic has since won 59 singles titles, including 10 grand slams, pocketing almost $94 million in prize money alone in the process. He has been number one player in the rankings for a total of 176 weeks – more than Nadal ever managed, though still a way short of Federer’s benchmark of 302. And one of the reasons he has made it to the top – and stayed there – is because he is arguably the fittest player ever to walk onto court.

Djokovic is so remarkably athletic that good judges are often blinded. They see only the product of the gym: the discreetly muscled physique, the full-splits flexibility, the combination of staying power and brief recovery time. But he’s not the best just because he is the fittest. That’s only part of the reason. He’s the best because he has allied physical preparation on and off the court, mental tenacity and technical ability, to a level never previously seen in tennis.

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Or perhaps – and here’s the thing – any other sport.

Carve out a mental edge
The modern tennis player is the complete athlete. Strength, power, speed, endurance, flexibility – to get to the top, and stay there, he needs it all. In track and field, you can specialise in the explosive events, or in the endurance. A top tennis player needs to be able to run the 10,000m, while taking occasional breaks to run a 100m sprint or do a bit of shot-putting. He needs the stamina to last for five sets, but he must also have explosive power: to make a long chase and unload into a kill-shot. He must be precise and skilful when close to exhaustion. And that – more than anything else – describes the way that Djokovic wins matches against the finest opposition that tennis has ever thrown up.

“We have fitter, faster, stronger and better athletes, and that’s inevitable with increased professionalism,” says Mark Williams, professor of clinical psychology at Oxford University. He suggests that all sports have changed dramatically in levels of fitness, strength and quickness, but what sets apart tennis players – and Djokovic in particular – is not just great physical fitness, but psychological superiority.

“Everyone at the top levels of sport is fit,” he says. “Without fitness you’re no good, don’t even start. But it's not enough on its own. Tennis is also about higher-level cognitive thinking. You must know what your opponent will do: pick up his body-shape and his movement, know what shots to expect from what areas of the court. It's a matter of mental preparation over an extended timescale, and that's a process based on, say, 20 hours of practice a week, totalling 1000 hours every year. That’s the way you create technical and tactical ability, and it’s essential.”

In last year’s Australian Open final it seemed that Andy Murray had got on top of the match as he levelled at a set-all – but Djokovic found another gear to take the next set 6-3 and then yet another to take the fourth to love. Raise, then raise again. You’re not supposed to be able to do things like that, not at this level of sport. People who watched tended to misunderstand. They thought Murray had thrown in the towel. Not a bit. Djokovic got stronger. When tiredness should have cut in he found his A-game and played better.

Sweat the small things – all of them
Djokovic’s victory didn’t just come down to his apparent ability to run forever, or his ability to hit the ball with great strength when he got there. It was also the mental certainty that came with it. Because Djokovic not only chases down your best shot, he also has the unerring clarity of mind – a product of both physical fitness and game sense – to play the right shot when he gets there. He hasn’t just developed the physical ability to outrun his rivals, but the mental edge to outlast them.

The person who knows Djokovic best on the circuit is another Serb, Viktor Troicki, a very respectable player himself, with a career-high ranking of 12 and $5m in prize money in the bank. He has something of a big-brother feeling for Djokovic – he’s two years older – and he speaks of him protectively and proudly. There’s a rivalry, sure, but that’s their business. In public he has his bro’s back.

“It happened when he was 14. That’s when I first felt that he really could be very good indeed,” says Troicki. “Partly this was because of his attitude – right at the start he was very professional. And it’s something I notice now even more. He just does everything right. Everything in his life. Watch him practise: he will give every session 100 per cent. It’s not about practising for hours and hours; it’s about practicing.

“He works on details: massage, strength, training, diet. He has a good, dedicated team and he can put all these things together to win the big titles.”

And it’s not just his friends who speak so highly of him, but his ATP tour rivals too. “He has the best fitness on the tour,” David Ferrer tells me, with the kind of honesty you would not normally expect from a regular opponent. Ferrer is 33, with 24 career titles and a highest ranking of 3. He has beaten Djokovic five times and suffered 15 defeats, saying modestly: “To beat him I need to have a very good day while he has a bad day.

“He has everything. He is faster and stronger, and his coordination is unbelievable. When it comes to flexibility he's the best, and he has been able to improve his abilities. Six years ago he was not so strong.”

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No, he was not. Six years ago, when Federer was unplayable, and Nadal unbeatable, Djokovic was a respectable world number three. Winning matches, yes; winning tournaments too. But still a way behind the two greatest players ever to step onto a tennis court. To make the seemingly impossible step up, he’d need to make big changes, fast.

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