Djokovic, Swiatek & Gauff lead nominations for 2024 Laureus World Sports Awards

The nominees for the 2024 Laureus World Sports Awards were unveiled on Monday, and world No. 1s Novak Djokovic and Iga Swiatek made sure tennis was once again well represented.

Four-time World Sportsman of the Year winner Djokovic will go for his fifth honor at the 25th edition of the prestigious sports awards, while Swiatek earned her second consecutive World Sportswoman of the Year nomination. Reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff also earned her first Laureus nod for World Breakthrough of the Year.

“It’s an honor to be nominated for @LaureusSport 2024 World Sportsman of the Year,” Djokovic posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter—as he also gave a shout out to the “special group” of athletes sharing his ballot: soccer stars Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi, Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen, pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, and sprinter Noah Lyles.

Djokovic, who took home the World Sportsman of the Year award in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2019, also has the chance to tie five-time winner Roger Federer for the most times a tennis player has won the category.

The nomination is a well-deserved recognition of Djokovic’s superb 2023 season, which saw him win three Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open, Roland Garros and the US Open, while also reaching the final at Wimbledon. He finished the year at world No. 1, having racked up seven titles in total in 2023—including his seventh win at the Nitto ATP Finals.

Swiatek was also recognized with a World Sportswoman of the Year nomination after claiming her fourth Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, one of six titles she took home last year. She finished the season back where she started it, as the WTA world No. 1, after lifting the trophy at the WTA Finals Cancun.

The 22-year-old from Poland is nominated alongside World Cup champion and Balon d'Or winner Aitana Bonmati (soccer), athletics stars Sha'Carri Richardson, Shericka Jackson and Faith Kipyegon, as well as skier Mikaela Shiffrin—who also happens to be a good friend of Swiatek.

All but two of the eight Laureus World Sports Awards categories feature a tennis nomination—the only exceptions being the Team and Action Sportsperson of the Year Awards—extending a years-long trend of individual success at the award ceremony. Since its inception in 2000, at least one tennis player has won an award in all but five years, with Federer holding the record for the most Laureus awards with six including one for Comeback of the Year in 2018.

Should Djokovic and Swiatek both win their categories, it would also mark the fifth time that tennis players have taken home the evening’s top individual honors, following Federer and Justine Henin in 2008, Djokovic and Serena Williams in 2016, Federer and Williams in 2018, and Rafael Nadal and Naomi Osaka in 2021.

Gauff, who became the youngest American to win the US Open since Serena Williams in 1999 with her maiden Grand Slam victory, landed on the ballot for World Breakthrough of the Year. The 19-year-old lifted three trophies in 2023 to finish the year at a career-high ranking of world No. 3. The American is nominated alongside soccer stars like Real Madrid wunderkind Jude Bellingham, Salma Paralluelo and Linda Caicedo, as well as Josh Kerr (athletics) and Qin Haiyang (swimming).

Other nominees from the world of tennis include a World Comeback of the Year nod for Marketa Vondrousova, who became the first unseeded woman to win at Wimbledon in the Open era after battling injuries and coming back from wrist surgeries. Dutch wheelchair tennis legend Diede de Groot also received a nomination for World Sportsperson with a Disability—De Groot completed her third consecutive calendar-year Slam last year, and has stayed unbeaten at the Grand Slams since 2020.

Nadal’s eponymous foundation earned a nod in the “Sport for Good” category.

The nominees were selected by a panel of 1,400 international sports journalists, with the winners to be chosen by members of the Laureus World Sports Academy. The winners will be unveiled at a ceremony in Madrid, Spain on April 22.