Novak Djokovic is now one Laureus statue away to tying the record of Roger Federer after winning his second consecutive and third overall Laureus Sportsman of the Year on Monday in Berlin, Germany.
Djokovic keeps on giving everybody reasons why he's in contention to topple Federer as the greatest tennis player of all time after bagging Laureus Awards' top individual prize in back-to-back years. The Serb joined Tiger Woods (2000, 2001), Federer (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008) and Usain Bolt (2009, 2010) as the only players to win the Sportsman of the Year awards consecutively.
Djokovic, who also won the same award in 2011 to make it a total of three Laureus, is now trailing Federer's record of four statutes. As a matter of fact, he's in position of doing so if he continues to rack up more titles this year, especially the remaining Grand Slams.
On way to becoming the greatest?
Many analysts are starting to believe that Djokovic has real shot at becoming the greatest player who ever played the game when all said and done. Last year, the Serb put up one of the most dominant seasons in men's tennis by winning 82 of his 88 matches, reaching all four Grand Slam finals (winning three of them), and retaining the world's no.1 ranking for the entire season.
This year, Djokovic opened his campaign with a bang by winning a fifth Australian Open championship and swept the back-to-back Masters tournament at Indian Wells and Miami. That's how dominant Nole has been the last two years.
The question now is has he done enough to snatch the title as the greatest ever from Federer? The answer is not yet. Is he on track to do just that? Yes, he's very much in position to achieve such feat. At 28-years old, Djokovic is at the height of his career and it seems there's no stopping him from adding more Grand Slams titles, barring a major injury.
Make no mistake, Federer is still the king of kings, the tennis' gold standard with his 17 Grand Slam championships, but Djokovic is the raging knight who's coming for the king's head.