Novak Djokovic gunning for French Open glory to complete career Grand Slam

For the second time in his career, Wimbledon, US Open and Australian Open champion Djokovic will arrive at Roland Garros needing seven victories to become the first man in nearly 50 years to hold all four grand slam titles at the same time. Since then, he’s won nine of the past 20 Grand Slams, as dominant as anyone has been in the game’s history.

Djokovic beat Andy Murray on Sunday to retain his Australian Open title, the sixth time he has won the Grand Slam at Melbourne Park. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic himself have all managed three in one year but all found the complete set one step too far.

The next Grand Slam question for Djokovic is whether he can finally win the big one on clay.

By the time he got to the final, he had run out of ideas and was powerless to stop Stan Wawrinka from running away with the spoils.

The Serbian’s fifth crown in six years on his favourite court not only allowed him to match Roy Emerson’s record Australian Open tally but also brought him level with Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg on 11 grand slam titles. “Thank you so much for all of your support and I ll be on the next plane home”, the Scot said at the on-court awards ceremony.

“Of course it served as a great motivation, as a great imperative to play my best”.

Novak Djokovic now has 11 Grand Slam title and is fifth on the all time list of players with most Grand Slam titles.

“I can not believe what I’m watching and Novak Djokovic is undoubtedly moving towards being considered the sport’s all-time greatest player, and that’s quite something, particularly in this generation”.

Murray, Federer and Nadal will certainly agree with that assessment as they all fell under his spell in the opening month of the 2016 season. That’s saying something for a decade-long rivalry that spans 45 matches. He leads Federer 23-22, Nadal 24-23 and Murray 22-9.

Djokovic, who moves closer to becoming tennis’ first $100 million man with a win in Melbourne, will return to action on February 22 at the Dubai Tennis Championships, where he was a runner-up to Federer a year ago.

Djokovic will now turn his attention to securing a maiden French Open crown in May, the only grand slam title that currently eludes him.

Should he match Laver’s feat of winning four slams in a row, the 28-year-old will have to find some new superlatives to describe his form.

“After that I already thinking about how can I continue on playing well throughout the rest of the season”.

“There’s something I’ve found out in the previous years in my career is that you can’t separate yourself professionally and privately – you’re the same person”, Djokovic said.

“I always strive to improve not just the game or technically, tactically, but also mentally. Whether that looks the same from the outside or not I don’t know”.