Nadia and I love tennis and we played for the first time this school year last Sunday. We played on hard courts at the Yunnusobod National Tennis Club. We’ve played on the indoor courts there in the winter, but never on the outdoor courts in the summer. We reserved Court #2 which is literally under the iconic Tashkent Television Tower. After watching Novak Djoković win gold in the Paris 2024 Games, we were ready to hit the courts. You can see in the video below, we got a good workout in and had a lot of fun.
I need to comment on Djokovic’s accomplishments. He completed his career “Golden Slam” by winning Olympic Singles Gold, a tournament that has eluded him for many years. He did it against his latest arch rival, up-and-coming superstar, Carlos Alcaraz. Both players were at the top of their game with no service breaks and three tiebreakers to win it. I love the format of 3-set tennis with the third set being a 10-point tiebreaker. I think tennis should move to that format more often on the ATP Tour. It is great when your favorite player is the greatest of all time and he has undoubtedly proved it. He has the most Grand Slam Titles in the Open Era (24), the most Masters Series Tennis Titles (40), the Most Weeks Ranked #1 (404), most ATP Tour Finals Titles (7), the highest overall career winning percentage (83.8%), and now he can add an Olympic Gold to his Davis Cup Title representing our beloved Serbia!
What else does Djokovic have left to play for? I guess he can overtake Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slams. She won 13 of those at the Australian Open in an era when the best professionals didn’t go to Australia to play. She was the dominant player of her era and one of the best female tennis player ever, but her accomplishments do not come close to what players like Federer, Serena Williams, Stefi Graf, and Nadal have to do more recently. I would like to see how long he can stay at an elite level. He has not won a Grand Slam since the US Open last fall at age 36. The oldest Grand Slam winner was Ken Rosewell (age 37, 1 month, 24 days) at the 1972 Australian Open. Federer had to retire because of a knee injury and Rafa Nadal looks like he will soon be joining him. I would put Novak still in the top group of current tennis players. There are Alcaraz, Sinner, and possibly Medvedev that can beat him, but no one else on the tour can, especially at the big tournaments. If he can avoid playing 2 of the 3 in a tournament, his chances are good for another Grand Slam.
I end this post with giving a shout out to the Uzbekistan Olympic Team. They won 8 gold medals, finishing in the #13 in the gold medal tally. They won an additional 5 medals to finish with 13 total medals. Uzbek specialize in combat sports and all of their medals came in boxing, wrestling, judo, and taekwondo with one medal in the related sport of weightlifting. Pretty good for a country of 36 million people! All medallists won a house, car, and cash prize from the government.
Bill's Blog 