Novak Djokovic finished the 2022 season on a high with the sixth ATP Finals title of his career. He beat Casper Ruud to win his first ATP Finals title in seven years, equalling Roger Federer’s record tally of six titles.
Djokovic became the oldest player to win the ATP Finals Trophy as Federer was 30 years old when he won the tournament in 2011.
Djokovic gets better and better, while many tennis stars start to wane when they turn 30.
His coach Goran Ivanisevic said in the post-match press conference that Djokovic is still hungry and wants to continue improving.
“He is training even harder than he 22. That’s why he is still so good and that’s why he is still going to be even better. The will to practice, the will to be better is amazing. He is taking care of his body. In my time we stopped playing tennis aged 30, 31. You were already an old guy ready to leave, but now it’s unbelievable”, said Ivanisevic.
Djokovic is ready to challenge the Next Generation led by Carlos Alcaraz, Holger Rune and Jannik Sinner.
“Look at Roger a couple of years back, look at Rafa. Look at him. They all talk about, yes, young players are coming. It’s great for tennis. You have Carlos Alcaraz, the youngest number 1 player in the world, who made unbelievable things this year. But look at Novak. He is still hungry. He is still winning tournaments, playing unbelievable tennis. He is still already thinking about preparation for the next season. Till he is like that. In my mind he is going to be always competitive, favourite to win Majors, and the big tournaments”, continued Ivanisevic.
In Sunday’s ATP Finals championships match Djokovic did not face a break point against Casper Ruud, but Ivanisevic believes that he is still room for improvement.
“His serve was very underestimated shot all through his career. If you look so many matches five, ten years ago, his serve always saved him somehow, but his serve is one of the best shots which people don’t talk, because they have so many things, they forget to talk about his serve. He has one of the best serves. Especially when it’s tight, it’s tough, especially this week he was hitting unbelievable serve under pressure, but you can always improve. You can always go backwards. With the serve, it’s very tricky. So far it’s working well. Especially this week. The court was a little faster, but still serve was working unbelievable”.
this week, amazing percentage, amazing precision of his serve. His second serve is much better. His serve
Ivanisevic explained the reason why tennis players manage to continue their careers for a longer time than the previous generation of players and are able to play many more matches.
“I stopped because of my shoulder. I had a surgery. I could not come back any more. I don’t say that they are fitter than us. They are not fitter. I started to play with a wooden raquet through my career when I was young. Now they take more care of the body. The teams are bigger. Before you travelled with a coach. Now you have a lot of people in the team. You have a lot of possibilities to take care of your body. Novak is a genius. He wants to improve all the time. Look at how he moves on the court, slides. He is amazing. It’s always something that now the world offers you to improve. I think in that case players are playing in much older age. They are playing best tennis. They are looking unbelievable. Just a matter of everything that changes generally in sport, and it gives you more opportunity to recover, to take care of your body. We did not do that too much at our time. If I can go back to my time, I did it a lot of things differently. Now I can watch him and be just be impressed every day when we come to the practice. Not only him, but also players that I admire to watch. They are amazing athletes and tennis players”.