Rafael Nadal's Australian Open victory downplayed by Dzumhur and Pilic

Rafael Nadal won his 21st grand slam trophy in Melbourne but his victory has been downplayed by two current ATP players because of the omission of Novak Djokovic.

When Novak Djokovic got deported from Australia tennis history changed instantly. There are not a lot of people who did not consider Djokovic the favourite to win the event had he played but a very messy sequence of events led to deportation that will be remembered by many. Who is to blame for the whole mess matters little but there are those who are downplaying the triumph of Nadal as Djokovic did not play.

Damir Dzumhur and Nikola Pilic took to social media to voice their opinion after Nadal lifted the trophy with Dzumhur writing on Instagram:

“Anyone can win a Grand Slam without Novak competing. Still the goat [greatest of all time] Djoker!”

Pilic echoed similar sentiments but the Crotian actually congratulated Nadal as well:

“Congratulations from the bottom of my heart, What he has done has its weight, but this is not a real triumph because it was won without the best player in the world."

It's a valid sentiment as it's an opinion that is the right of every person but the flaw in that logic is quite obvious to anybody. Nonetheless, there have been many more congratulations to Nadal than comments like these and the Spaniard presumably won't care much.