Tennis great Mats Wilander has asserted that there is a “really good chance” that Novak Djokovic wins all four Grand Slam titles in 2024 ahead of the Australian Open.
The seven-time major champion highlighted the fact the Serbian legend had “a good chance” of winning the Calendar Grand Slam in both 2021 and 2023.
Djokovic won three of the four major tournaments in 2023 – the fourth time he accomplished this following stellar campaigns in 2011, 2015 and 2021. The 36-year-old lost in five sets in last year’s Wimbledon final to Carlos Alcaraz.
In 2021, Djokovic won the first three Grand Slam events of the year in a historic run, but missed out on a medal at the Tokyo Olympics, before losing the US Open final to fall one win short of a Calendar Grand Slam.
The world No 1 will have another opportunity to complete a Golden Slam (winning all four majors and an Olympic gold medal in a season) next year – with 2024 an Olympic year. No male player has achieved a Golden Slam – with tennis icon Steffi Graf the only player to accomplish the staggering feat in 1988.
Rod Laver was the last man to win all four Grand Slam tournaments in the same year – having achieved this in both 1962 and 1969.
Wilander pointed out that Djokovic has twice been within one win of claiming all four Grand Slams in a year and backed the world No 1 to go one better this season.
“Most probably he had a good chance of winning Wimbledon [in 2023]. He had a good chance of winning the US Open [in 2021] when he lost to Daniil Medvedev. OK, not on the day. On the day Medvedev was a human wall,” the Swede told Ubitennis.
“[For] Novak, maybe the pressure and the pressure was more in that final against them because it was the last Grand Slam they had. At Wimbledon [in 2023], there was less pressure because yes, he was the favourite to win, but you never know.
“And the matches that he loses on the tour, they are two out of three sets. In Grand Slams, three out of five – he just doesn’t lose tennis matches to the young guys because he understands how to play defence and when to play defence.
“Like last year he was a little bit injured in his right leg and what does he do? He hit his forehand harder last year in Australia than he’s ever hit his forehand before.
“So he knows how to make these adjustments on the day, in the moment, and maybe that’s what we are still waiting for Jannik Sinner to be able to: in the moment make these adjustments that work out in his favour.
“Nobody knows how to do that (win the Calendar Slam) so I see no reason why again I’m going to predict that he wins all four Slams because I predicted it a couple of years ago, I predicted it last year.
“I have been wrong, but it’s been very, very, very close, and I think that there’s a really, really, really good chance that he wins all four this year. I really do.”
Djokovic will face Alexei Popyrin in the second round of the 2024 Australian Open on Wednesday.