Team Roger? Team Rafa? Team Novak?
For the past two decades, that question framed almost every tennis conversation (it still does).
It was tribal, emotional, and deeply personal. You didn’t just watch the match, you picked a side, and much like picking your football team, you never wavered.
And while that debate will live on forever, the baton has clearly been passed. Carlos Alcaraz represents the future of the sport: the humility of Roger, the relentless fight of Rafa, and the all-court brilliance of Novak.
At just 22, he’s become the youngest male player to complete a career grand slam, placing himself among the rarest of company, alongside Steffi Graf, who famously completed the golden slam at just 19 years of age.
Nadal was 24 when he completed the same feat, Novak was 29. Safe to say the future of men’s tennis is in safe hands. However, last night’s finalist speech from Novak Djokovic left me feeling unexpectedly sad, and, if I’m honest, a little embarrassed for our country.
For Djokovic to reach the twilight of his career and only now feel embraced by an Australian crowd is genuinely sad and makes us look a bit petty.
Djokovic is not arguably the greatest of all time. He is the greatest. Twenty-four Grand Slam titles. An Olympic gold medal. Ten Australian Open championships.
No player has dominated Melbourne Park the way he has. Yet when he said, “particularly the last couple of matches you gave me something that I have never experienced in Australia, that much love, support, positivity – it’s been incredible,” it was jarring. Because why has it taken this long? How is he not already feeling that support and love like Roger does at Wimbledon or Rafa at Roland Garos? Why does Melbourne not feel like a second home to him instead of a rival’s home-court? Anyone who has watched Djokovic play in Melbourne knows the sound of Serbian fans in the stands.
The Serbian supporters are loud, passionate, unwavering – they always show up for him no matter where he is playing.
But there has often felt like a divide between that pocket of red, blue and white and the rest of the stadium.
Their chants would rise, only to be met with a strange neutrality, or at times resistance, from the broader crowd. It was as if Djokovic’s support needed to be contained, rather than shared. Melbourne is Djokovic’s fortress. It’s where he has produced some of the most consistently dominant, clinical, and mentally brutal tennis the sport has ever seen.
And yet, for much of his career, he has played here under a cloud. He’s been tolerated rather than embraced, respected in numbers but not in spirit.
He has always existed in the shadow of Federer’s elegance and Nadal’s romance. No matter how much he won, how often he prevailed, or how impossible his achievements became, it was rarely enough to win the crowd. There was always a sense that his greatness needed justification, while others’ greatness was simply accepted. Yes, Djokovic is a polarising figure. His views during the COVID years, particularly around vaccination, turned many against him (understandably so for some). And getting placed in immigration detention and booted out of the country on the eve of the 2022 Australian Open for not being vaccinated was not a great look either.
But it is possible to disagree with a person and still honour their sporting immortality. What Djokovic produced on the court, the resilience, the precision, and the refusal to lose particularly here in Melbourne, was nothing short of legendary. Sport, at its best, honours excellence even when it’s inconvenient. For Djokovic to reach the twilight of his career and only now feel embraced by an Australian crowd is genuinely sad and makes us look a bit petty.
A player who gave us countless unforgettable nights, five-set thrillers, and a masterclass in mental strength deserved to feel respected and loved long before his farewell tour. It feels a little like the youngest sibling in a family – the one who works harder, achieves more, and keeps showing up, yet is never quite seen as as good as the older two. No matter what he does, the goalposts keep moving. Tennis will move on. Alcaraz, Sinner, and others will write their own stories, and the race to overtake along with the conversations of who is the ‘GOAT’ will ensue.
But when we look back on this era, history will be kind to Novak Djokovic. The numbers guarantee that. I just wish the crowd had been kinder sooner.
