Thomas Siniecki, Media365: published on Wednesday August 21, 2024 at 11:44 p.m.
This is the theory of Chris Evert, who believes that the Serb would definitely have nothing more to prove afterwards.
Chris Evert has given a very clear opinion in favour of Novak Djokovic, who she hopes will win his 25th Grand Slam title at the US Open, which begins Monday in New York. For the American legend, herself fifth in women’s history and third in the Open era with 18 titles (24 for Margaret Court including eleven in the Open era, 23 for Serena Williams, 22 for Steffi Graf, 19 for Helen Wills outside the Open era, 18 also for Martina Navratilova), “it would be a Herculean feat if he reached that 25 mark”.
Evert: “After all that, I’ll let him!”
Asked by ESPN, she believes that he would become “the greatest player of all time, even if he already is in the minds of many people after being Olympic champion in the wake of his operation, against Carlos Alcaraz who was starting to take the upper hand at Wimbledon… To come back and find this resilience and this level of tennis, which we had not seen all year, it was a fairy tale.”
While Chris Evert admits that she didn’t expect it, she also says she believes in karma, and that after working like a madman all his life and “having been a bit of a bad guy with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, he deserves all this.” John McEnroe also places the debate on this point: “He’s trying to stand out from them, that’s really what it boils down to. And in a way, he already has. He’s won more than them, being an Olympic champion now… You’d have to ask him, but I see that as a bonus.” For Chris Evert, Novak Djokovic is in his best situation in a long time and she would like to see him stop in the event of a 25th Grand Slam title: “He would break the tie with Margaret Court… After all that, I would allow him to retire! It would be epic, but he’s motivated.”
