Melbourne(dpa)
Tomorrow, Sunday, the curtain will fall on the activities of the current edition of the Australian Open tennis tournament, the first of the four major “Grand Slam” tournaments in the current season, with the upcoming confrontation between Serbian Novak Djokovic and Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, ranked fifth and fourth in the world ranking.
The match tomorrow represents a confrontation between the experience of Djokovic, 35, the fourth seed of the tournament, who is in his tenth final in the tournament and 33 in the four major Grand Slam tournaments, and the ambitions of Tsitsipas, 24, who is in his first final in the tournament and only the second in tournaments. The big four.
And the excitement of tomorrow’s match is compounded by the fact that it will not be limited to competing only for the championship title, but rather the two players will fight for the top of the world professional rankings, as the winner of the title advances to the top of the world rankings. And while Djokovic has previously topped the rankings more than any other player in the history of this classification, Tsitsipas dreams of ascending to the top for the first time in his history.
Djokovic hopes to win the title tomorrow to achieve more than one record, while Tsitsipas seeks to beat his veteran opponent to achieve more than one other gain, including writing his name for the first time in the golden record of the four Grand Slams. Djokovic has a clear advantage over his Greek opponent, whether through the element of experience or the history of previous confrontations between the players. The two players meet tomorrow for the 13th time in their sports career so far, and Djokovic scored a clear advantage over his Greek opponent during the previous confrontations, with ten wins compared to only two for Tsitsipas.
The most prominent of the previous confrontations between the players was in the final of the French Open (Roland Garros), the second of the four major “Grand Slam” tournaments in 2021, and victory was an ally for Djokovic among 9 consecutive victories he achieved in his confrontations with Tsitsipas.
Therefore, revenge against Djokovic will be one of the goals of the Greek player tomorrow, especially since it is only his second final in the four Grand Slams.
On the other hand, Djokovic is looking forward to many other gains from tomorrow’s match, foremost of which is the veteran player’s desire to extend his record for the number of titles in the tournament, as the Serbian star holds the record with 9 titles in the Australian Open so far.
He is also seeking to extend his record, which he achieved during the matches of this tournament, and to achieve the 28th consecutive victory in his matches in the tournament, which he missed last season due to not obtaining the Corona vaccine.
Djokovic had achieved his 27th consecutive victory in the tournament during the semi-finals against American Tommy Paul, thus surpassing the previous record that former American star Andre Agassi had maintained for many years (26 consecutive victories).
But Djokovic’s biggest goal in tomorrow’s match will be equaling the record for the number of titles won by any player in the four major “Grand Slam” tournaments, as Spaniard Rafael Nadal currently holds this record, with 22 titles compared to 21 titles for Djokovic.
On the other hand, Tsitsipas is looking for his first titles in the Australian Open and the four Grand Slam tournaments, but he realizes the difficulty of his task in facing the experience of Djokovic, who defied the pain of injury in the earlier period of the current tournament and continued his way to the final with merit.
