Novak Djokovic aims to match Roger Federer‘s legendary eight wins at the Wimbledon Championships, and he’ll use that as fuel on Sunday when he faces Carlos Alcaraz.
The 37-year-old is up to 7 Wimbledon trophies so far in his tennis career, with last year’s final almost being the eighth one. Many expected that the Serbian could win that eighth title last year, but a stunning performance by the Spaniard denied Djokovic the trophy, making this final even more important.
He has been on record as wanting to equal Federer’s eight titles and confirmed this once more during his press conference after the match against Lorenzo Musetti.
As he said, history is on the line as it could potentially be his 25th Grand Slam, so all of that goes into his motivation to really perform well and possibly win the trophy.
“Obviously I’m aware Roger holds 8 Wimbledons. I hold 7. History is on the line. Also potentially my 25th Grand Slam. Of course it serves as great motivation but at the same time it’s also a lot of pressure and expectations.”
“Every time I step on court, even though I’m 37 and competing with the 21 year olds, I still expect myself to win most of the matches and people expect me to win 99% of the matches I play.”
This year hasn’t been that great for Djokovic, and he has to come to terms with it. He accepted it and tried to work as hard as possible to change it. So far, it’s gone well at Wimbledon, but his eyes are set on the shiny trophy.
“This year hasn’t been that successful for me. It’s probably the weakest results for the first 6 months I’ve had in many years. And that’s ok. I’ve had to adapt and accept that and also try to find a way out from the injury I had and regroup.”
“And Wimbledon, historically, there have been seasons where I wasn’t maybe playing at my desired level and then I’d win a Wimbledon title and things would change.”
