Three-time French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten believes Novak Djokovic will be the main protagonist on the tour over the coming years following his rapid return to world No.1.
The Serbian has relished in a successful second half of the season as he won both Wimbledon and the US Open to bring his grand slam title to 14. Drawing level with Pete Sampras on the all-time list of most major trophies won on the ATP Tour. Djokovic missed six months of last year due to an elbow injury, which required surgery in February. Overall has has managed to win 35 out of 38 matches played since the start of this year’s Wimbledon Championships.
“Without any doubt, the biggest message is the one of Djokovic,” Kuerten said during a recent interview with Mundo Deportivo.
“He was on a cloud, with all the difficulties you have to get to a very high level. But he returned, and he is the most prepared guy to triumph.”
Heading into 2019, Kuerten believes that Djokovic’s rivals will need to elevate their game in order to defeat him. During 2018 the Serbian recorded 14 consecutive wins over top 10 players to raise his overall record to an impressive 196. He tops the year-end rankings with a 1565-point lead over second place Nadal.
“I believe we ended the year with a guarantee, that in the next three or four years, the big protagonist will be him [Djokovic], and Rafa [Nadal] and Roger [Federer] need to find solutions one more time.” He said.
“They are the best for it, but Djokovic is still able to make it. Djokovic now has more room to achieve a complete year having chances to win for a longer time.”
There was also some disappointment for Djokovic during the later stages of this year. He lost his last two finals to two rising stars of the tour. At the Paris Masters he bowed out to Karen Khachanov. Then at the ATP Finals, he was denied the title by Alexander Zverev. Djokovic also lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas at the Canadian Masters in August.
All three of those losses were to the rising stars of the game with two of those currently belonging to the Next Generation contingent. A group of players under the age of 21 that are currently in the top 200. Khachanov turned 22 earlier this year.
“Zverev makes me go back to the tournament that I won in Lisbon (Masters Cup). I also had to beat the two greats (Sampras and Agassi).” Kuerten reflected.
“He defeated Federer and then faced Djokovic. There is no other way to unseat this galactic generation, whose members live longer than everyone else. They have been there (on the tour) 10 and 15 years and they only stop when others take them out.”
“The sensations that I have are very good. Everyone has a limit, but I see Djokovic with more margin and playing with more pretensions.” He added.
Djokovic is scheduled to kick-off his 2019 season in Qatar at the Doha Open.
