Novak Djokovic is the best tennis player in the world: now, and for the foreseeable future, perhaps until he chooses to retire, which looks to be a few years away yet, he hinted on Sunday night. What the 31-year-old Serb can achieve in the remaining days of a career that began more than a thousand matches and 72 titles ago is difficult to gauge but less so than it was before the final of the Australian Open.
What he did to Rafael Nadal in the Rod Laver Arena turned what had been a keen debating point about their relative merits, along with speculation about Roger Federer’s longevity, into a confident assertion that Djokovic has moved into another area of excellence.
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Djokovic has now moved clear of Pete Sampras in the list of all-time male grand slam winners:
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