99 SPORTSPERSON OF THE YEAR 2021TRADING CONVENIENCE AND ACTION
for comfort and solitude, Novak Djokovic usually avoids
Manhattan during his annual romps through the
U.S. Open. Instead, he stays at the hillside New Jersey
estate of the tech-obsessed tennis
coach Gordon Uehling, a longtime
friend. The grounds include vari-
ous courts that simulate the sport’s
grandest venues—Wimbledon’s
Centre Court, Court Philippe-Chatrier
at the French Open and Arthur Ashe
Stadium in New York—down to the
exact same surface specifications and
speeds. There are also pools, space-age
recovery rooms and acres upon acres of
wooded land. Three days before the 2021
U.S. Open began, Djokovic hiked the grounds. Barefoot.
While on that walk, Djokovic was perhaps channel-
ing what, earlier in the summer, he referred to as his
wolf energy. “I love the ability to have freedom, space, go
around and be in the mountains,” he explained. “Wolves
always kind of attracted me. We are—at least most peopleare—frightened of wolves, but at the same time they are
very instinctual animals, and I think very important
animals for our ecosystem and for us. I truly try to mani-
fest that kind of determined wolf energy on the court.
Balanced with calmness, knowing when to attack and
knowing when to rest. So I think those kinds of symbolic
explanations [help me] fit with wolves.”
Befitting an athlete who combines the spiritual (and
lupine) with the practical, Djokovic is also able to consult a
trove of tennis data at Uehling’s estate. Uehling says: “We
see the game with 3,800 different shot types and we’re able
to really home in on what area needs addressing or areas
that the opponent maybe doesn’t like to be addressed. It’s
a question-and-answer game. And if somebody is asking
a question, you have to come up with the right answer.”
Saying that Djokovic came up with the right answers
in 2021 would be akin to saying that, during the year,
Elon Musk came up with a bit more wealth. Even by
those dizzyingly high Djokovician standards, he outdid
himself. In this, the year he turned 34—once thought to
be ancient in the dog years of men’s tennis—Djokovic
may have been at the peak of his powers. He started at
No. 1 and didn’t budge, finishing the season atop the
heap for a record seventh time.
He did so mostly by winning three of the four majors
(the Australian and French Opens, followed by Wimbledon)
and coming within a match of tennis’s holy grail, a
calendar-year Grand Slam, a feat no man has achieved
since Rod Laver more than a half century ago.In 2021, Djokovic pulled even with Roger Federer and
Rafael Nadal in men’s tennis’s GOAT rodeo, the three-
way rivalry for the right to be declared the best ever.
Each man now has 20 major singles titles, a fitting (if
temporary) tie among contemporaries for the all-time
record. Yet, by virtually any other criteria—weeks at
No. 1; head-to-head records; titles at ATP Masters events,
the tier underneath majors—Djokovic has surged ahead.
And as the youngest of the Big Three, he is the player
with the most remaining runway.
Novak Djokovic is not Roger Federer. He doesn’t neces-
sarily play with the kind of easy, f luid grace or whip up2 O
2 1“I try to manifest that kind of determined
WOLF ENERGY on the court,” Djokovic says.
“Balanced with calmness, knowing when to
attack, knowing when to rest.”HOWLING WINS
Djokovic tore through his opponents at
the first three Grand Slam events, tying
BR Federer and Nadal with 20 career majors.
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