When Pete Sampras completed his “death march” to the world No. 1 ranking for a record sixth consecutive year in 1998, he was so burned out that he didn’t even enter the Australian Open. Novak Djokovic is coming off a year in which he went 70-6, won three majors, and burned himself out, physically and mentally, by mid-fall. Will he be in the proper mental and physical shape to defend the title he won in a three-set demolition of Andy Murray? The big question is whether Djokovic has had enough time to recover and bring his most lethal game—and game face—to Australia. To that end, Djokovic decided to stay in training camp in Australia until the first major gets underway. That was a calculated risk, given that the other three members of the ATP’s Big Four (Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Andy Murray) all played in warm-up events.
Why He’ll Win: Hitting the reset button in tennis is mainly a psychological act, and Djokovic knows that everyone will be gunning for him. Nothing like a little adrenalin to get your A-game going.
Why He Won’t: He’s coming off a career year, and his struggles with injury and motivation at the end of 2011 were just a harbinger of the letdown that’s apt to follow his performance last year.
Bottom Line: Look for the other members of the Big Four to challenge Djokovic, but it’s very hard to pick against him given all that he’s accomplished in the past 12 months.
More Previews:
- Kim Clijsters
- Juan Martin del Potro
- Petra Kvitova
- Novak Djokovic
- Maria Sharapova
- Roger Federer
- Samantha Stosur
- Andy Murray
- Serena Williams
- Rafael Nadal
- Caroline Wozniacki