Novak Djokovic is renowned as the most successful men’s singles player of all-time, winning 23 Grand Slam titles. However, conversely, the World No.2 has lost as many as 12 Grand Slam finals in his career, including the recent Wimbledon 2023 one against Carlos Alcaraz. Perhaps being a victim of his own greatness, Djokovic has done what no other player has in tennis history with so many losses on the big stage as well.
On the other hand, what comes as a huge surprise is that his biggest rivals have lesser number of Grand Slams finals defeats, i.e. Rafael Nadal has just 8 while Roger Federer has 11 to his name. Additionally, Novak Djokovic will avoid to another record at the upcoming US Open 2023 which is being held by the legendary Martina Navratilova.
The one time Djokovic wouldn’t want to match Navratilova and Evert
Martina Navratilova is arguably the most decorated tennis player across all categories of all-time, as she has won 59 majors in the Open Era. Out of those, 18 have come in women’s singles tennis. One can only imagine that if Navratilova had not lost 13 singles finals, that number would have inched closer to Serena Williams’ tally perhaps.
As a result, should Novak Djokovic make it to the US Open 2023 final and lose that as well, he would become the joint-second player with Martina Navratilova to have 13 lost Grand Slam finals to his name. The player who has the most Grand Slam finals defeats to their names across men’s and women’s singles categories in the Open Era is none other than the United States’ Chris Evert, whose rivalry with Martina Navratilova lifted women’s tennis to newer heights in the 1970s and 1980s.
Interestingly, Evert had also won 18 women’s singles Grand Slam titles but lost in as many as 15 finals. Most of the times, those came against Navratilova. Novak Djokovic would be the only player to perhaps relate the most to this feeling as out of his 12 losses, 5 of them alone have come against Rafael Nadal. Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka have beaten him in 2 finals each, while Roger Federer outclassed him in the 2007 US Open final, which happened to be Djokovic’s first Grand Slam final appearance of his career.
At the same time, such a stat also tells that it is because of being able to manage to reach so many Grand Slam finals as compared to their competitors, that Novak Djokovic, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert have it to their names.
A record Novak Djokovic would love to break soon
Having won the French Open 2023 in early June, Novak Djokovic became the third oldest men’s singles player to win a Grand Slam title in the Open Era, aged 36 years 20 days. The only 2 players ahead of him are Ken Rosewall (37 years 62 days) and Roger Federer (36 years 173 days).
Seeing Novak Djokovic’s form, longevity and fitness, it is extremely likely that the Serbian passes both the legends to create history which may never be replicated in the future. Although he turns 37 next year in May, he might look to play for another 2-3 years. And should Djokovic not go past Rosewall, he would definitely be satisfied to at least trump Federer for a record which was not long ago, considered impossible to achieve.
