Famous tennis coach
Goran Ivanisevic believes that Serbia’s
Novak Djokovic can still compete with the likes of Italy’s
Jannik Sinner and
Spain’s
Carlos Alcaraz for big titles. The 37-year-old is often regarded as the
greatest player in the history of men’s tennis in the Open era, having won as
many as 24 Grand Slam titles.
One-time Grand Slam winner Ivanisevic recently spoke to The
Tennis Majors, where he discussed Djokovic in detail. The 53-year-old has
a lot of experience working with the Belgrade-born player, as the two
worked together for six years. Ivanisevic believed that the former world number
one remains very capable of winning major events or, at the very least, competing
with the likes of the world number one, Italy’s Jannik Sinner and Spain’s young
tennis sensation Carlos Alcaraz.
However, Ivanisevic, who has recently started working with
the women’s world number five
Elena Rybakina, was of the opinion that one of the big reasons which can determine
whether Djokovic can compete against the two best players in the world is his ‘motivation’
level.
“I can’t know if he is motivated and how much, but the
moment he decides to play, it means that he is eager to play,” he said. “Jannik
Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz are convincingly above the rest of the field, but I
put Novak in the group with them, because when Novak really wants to play, he
is still the best in the world, in my opinion. The other thing is how much he
wants to play and when – we saw at the Olympics… If he goes out on the court
like that, then he can still win a Slam. Also, it depends on his ranking and
the draw, when does he need to face Sinner or Alcaraz, lots of factors, but can
Novak do it? Yes, he can. You can never write him off, I would never do that.”