Wilander believes Djokovic has to win at Australian Open to keep pace in GOAT Race: "You cannot lose in Melbourne and be 21 and Rafa gets to 23"

Novak Djokovic is favoured to win the Australian Open and Mats Wilander thinks he needs to win it in order to keep himself in the GOAT debate.

Djokovic will be going for his 10th Australian Open which would be iconic it itself but it would also boost his GOAT status chase. There are many reasons why Djokovic would want to win the event and one of them is also to take revenge on the way he was denied a chance to play at the event last year.

Speaking to Eurosport, Wilander talked about Djokovic:

"The revenge he most probably wants will be winning in Melbourne. The race is back on. If he wins it. It's 22-22 (Grand Slams tally with Nadal). He has got to get to 22 before the French Open comes in May because Rafa might grab another one. You cannot lose in Melbourne and be 21, and Rafa gets to 23."

Read also

Iga Swiatek overcomes resilient effort from Martina Trevisan to secure win for Poland at United Cup

He also talked about the significane of winning 10 majors on a hard court:

"I think that in today's men's professional tennis, a lot of them have grown up on clay, but on hard courts, they are all experts. I think that if you win 10 Australian Opens on hard courts, that means you have to beat maybe the best field in tennis because everybody knows how to play on hard courts. So I think that achievement would be unbelievable. Nine is already unbelievable."

Read also

Kyrgios withdraws from Adelaide 2 event next week, Australian Open not in doubt