"When Novak played in 2022, he was the best player.
No doubt about it…” The American Taylor Fritz has said it all.
Sunday evening, in Turin, Novak Djokovic did not tremble at the time of yet another appointment with history.
Seven years after his last title, the world No. 7 has won a 6th Masters by beating the Norwegian Casper Ruud (7-5, 6-3), a subscriber to supporting roles this season (with two other major finals at Roland- Garros and the US Open).
At 35, the Serb is the oldest winner of the roller coaster at the end of the year and joins Roger Federer, six times crowned, on the list.
Incidentally, under the eyes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, the Belgradois got his hands on the biggest check ever offered on the circuit.
Undefeated in his Italian week (three victories in group, half and final by conceding a single set), Djokovic leaves Piedmont with an obol of 4.6 million euros!
Or the cumulative prize money of a winner of Roland-Garros and the US Open (with four weeks of work and fourteen opponents to tame).
📊 Oldest Masters winners:
🇷🇸 Djokovic - 35 years 5 months 29 days (2022) 🆕
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🇨🇭 Federer - 30 years 3 months 19 days (2011)
🇬🇧 Murray - 29 years 6 months 5 days (2016)
🇷🇴 Nastase - 29 years 4 months 18 days (1975) pic.twitter.com/F8S3jExrQ8
— Game, Set and Maths (@JeuSetMaths) November 20, 2022
“Novak on hard indoors is one of the biggest challenges in our sport”, breathes Ruud, who has not created the slightest break point.
In recent days, Djokovic has seemed alternately exceeded, exhausted, woozy, pushed to the end of his strength (by Medvedev) but without any of his rivals managing to divert him from his objective.
Like on a mission at the end of the strangest twelve months of his career and perhaps also of the ATP.
When playing, the boss has most often won.
Especially since the fall, when only the young Dane Holger Rune had the audacity to deprive him of the tree given to the winner of the Rolex Paris Masters (18 victories and three titles in Tel Aviv, Astana and Turin, a defeat).
We can always say – rightly – that his “light” season due to non-vaccination against Covid-19 allowed him to come back full of freshness at a time when organisms and brains are beginning to suffer.
It prevents.
The Serb remains above the lot.
And two of the four Grand Slams have been removed by Rafael Nadal, 36, proof that the next generation will have to wait a little longer before taking full power.
"When he didn't play, which was for a large part of the year, there were a lot of different results," Fritz said.
Because when you take it out of the equation, I think everyone is stuck in a pocket square.
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✨ MASTER6CLASS ✨@DjokerNole is six times ATP Finals champion!
🏆 2008 I 2012 I 2013 I 2014 I 2015 I 20𝟚𝟚 #NittoATPFinals pic.twitter.com/FGgAmvJUhW
— Roland-Garros (@rolandgarros) November 20, 2022
With his transalpine success, the man with 21 Majors will return to the top 5 on Monday. 2000 points all round from world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz having missed Melbourne, New York and having been deprived of… 2000 points during his coronation at Wimbledon against a backdrop of conflict between the ATP and the English organizers who had refused Russian and Belarusian players after the invasion of Ukraine.
Suffice to say that the first months of 2023 are going to be exciting.
The nine-time winner of the Australian Open could quickly climb a few more steps to the place that is his... even if he does not occupy it.
