Former doubles World No.1 and ex coach of Serena Williams, Rennae Stubbs believes Novak Djokovic will be delighted to get one over Roger Federer at the Olympic Games.
Whilst Federer won a doubles gold medal, he never completed the mission in singles and Stubbs said that secretly he will be delighted to complete what the Swiss ace couldn’t.
Djokovic who will make his return to action in two weeks at the US Open won his first gold medal at his fifth Olympics by seeing off Carlos Alcaraz. He has now won all significant titles in the sport.
“He joins an exclusive club of gold medal champions in singles because Rafa [Nadal] won in singles and doubles, Steffi [Graf] of course did what we will probably never see [again] — winning all four Grand Slams and then winning a gold medal,” said Stubbs on her Racquet Tennis Podcast.
“But Novak joins Andre Agassi, the likes of these players. Roger Federer is not even on that list. Although Roger won a gold medal in doubles, he never did this in singles so that’s something that I am sure Novak is really happy that he has got over Roger.”
Sam Querrey in the same podcast lauded Djokovic for completing his mission and doing what he said he would. “I feel like the entire year Novak was telling us his goal this year is to get a gold medal,” said Querrey.
“And then to go out there and not have a great year in terms of Novak standard and get to the Olympics, through some of those tough matches on the way to the gold medal and then to actually get the gold medal, do that thing you’ve been telling people the whole year, ‘Hey this is the number one thing I want to accomplish’, was an amazing thing to see.”