Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have both factored in Novak Djokovic's struggles, according to Boris Becker.
Becker revealed to CNN's World Sport show the reason behind Djokovic's poor performance in the second half of the season that led to the Serb relinquishing his throne atop the ATP World Rankings. Becker, who has been coaching Djokovic for the past two years, said that Federer and Nadal's absence at the Tour contributed to the Belgrade native's disappointing slide.
"He [Djokovic] didn't have any opponents anymore," Becker said. "His time was with Nadal, with Federer. Andy (Murray) was always the fourth guy. So he lost a little bit of his opponents."
Since winning his first ever French Open title, Djokovic's form went downhill suffering early losses at Wimbledon and the Olympic Games in Rio before falling short on winning the US Open. Djokovic's losing slump continues from then, failing to defend his crowns in China, Paris, and most recently at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London, where he got defeated by Murray as the Scot secure the year-end No. 1.
Opposite of what Federer and Nadal's absence did to Djokovic, their return could fuel Murray to continue his rise in the tennis scene. Murray's consistency has helped win his third major this year and finish the season at the summit. While the Scot has yet to give a thought of building his own era in the next few years, Federer and Nadal's comeback would fuel such desires to remain atop the tennis world.
"Never given that any thought at all," Murray said, reports ESPN.
"I'd obviously want to try and achieve as much as I can these next few years because I'm not going to be around forever. I'm not going to be able to play at this level and play this many matches into my mid-30s."
Both Federer and Nadal had hard times remaining in full health this year, which forced both of them to skip the remainder of the season. Federer, who suffered a major injury earlier this year, decided to recuperate from re-injuring his knee at Wimbledon, while Nadal also elected to sit out from the rest of this year's competition to heal his left wrist injury suffered at Roland Garros.