5 best athletes for the week 30 May - 6 June
As part of our ongoing series, we pick the 5 most dominant athletes in sport in a week that has been dominated by tennis as the French Open drew to a close.
Novak Djokovic
He’s been absolutely unstoppable on the court all year, but had a shaky claycourt season, crashing out of tournaments early, sitting them out and then eventually losing in the finals of the Italian Open to Andy Murray just ahead of the French Open.
It was a tournament at which he had never won a title, despite having been a finalist three times in the past. Fresh off a straight sets loss to Andy Murray, who won the title at the Rome Masters, Djokovic may have been ahead physically but on the back foot psychologically.
He was considered one of the greatest clay court players to have never won a French Open title, but this year, the Serbian World No. 1 no longer has to hold that title.
He progressed to the finals at Roland Garros this year with relative ease, beating all but one of his opponents in straight sets en route to his final showdown. Interestingly, it was opponent Andy Murray, fresh off a staggering clay court victory over Djokovic, who had an extremely shaky start to the tournament, with both his opening matches relatively uncertain.
Dominated by Murray in the first set and looking to be on shaky ground, the Serb staged a comeback in typical Djokovic fashion, reining in his game to eventually end the match in four sets as Murray struggled to fight back, even up a set on the top-ranked player.
The win gives Djokovic a career slam; he also became only the eighth player in tennis history to have won all four Grand Slams – and currently holds each title.