Sports Desk, 12 June: Tennis legend Novak Djokovic wrote men’s tennis history on Sunday when he defeated Casper Ruud in the French Open final to win a record-tying 23rd Grand Slam major trophy.
An emotional Novak Djokovic was brimming with pride after the victory as he thought back on his historic achievement.
“I knew that going into the tournament, going into the match, especially today, that there is history on the line. But I try to focus my attention and my thoughts into preparing for this match in the best way possible to win like any other match,” Djokovic told reporters.
“For me, on a daily basis, I’m the best on the court, because with this state of mind, it’s the only state of mind or spirit that can lead to historical results and this trophy. Afterwards, statistics are there, but we have a lot of different factors. It depends on the point of view of a person or the organizations that discuss these things. So I don’t want to enter in these discussions. I’m writing my own history,” he added.
Ruud was defeated by Djokovic 7-6(1), 6-3 and 7-5 as he won his third Roland Garros championship overall.
On Court-Philippe Chatrier, Ruud got off to a fast start against the Serbian but the three-time Roland Garros champion responded just as well. As the opening set moved towards a tie-breaker both players delivered outstanding performances.
Djokovic started the tiebreaker behind 1-4 but from that point on, he came up with some of his skilled shots to win the set in 13 minutes.
Rudd later made a comeback but it wasn’t enough as the Serbian widened his margin to win the title and set a new record.
With this triumph, the three-time French Open champion will unseat Carlos Alcaraz as the top player in the ATP Rankings.
At 36 years and 20 days old, Djokovic has surpassed Rafael Nadal as the oldest Roland Garros champion. He also made history by becoming the first person to have won all four Grand Slam tournaments at least three times with this victory.
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