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 That "positive arrogance" has made Djokovic a formidable athlete
who, rather than being distracted by the joys of married life and
fatherhood, has become a human winning machine who keeps showing up
come finals day.
In fact since the birth of his son Stefan last October, the world
number one has lost only three of 61 matches and collected eight
titles, including the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
"Ever since I got married and became a father, I haven't lost many
matches, I won many tournaments. I suggest that to every player, Get
married, have kids, let's enjoy this," a beaming Djokovic said as he
celebrated his first wedding anniversary by winning his third
Wimbledon title.
He lifted the gold trophy after a 7-6(1) 6-7(10) 6-4 6-3 victory
over second-seeded Swiss great Roger Federer.
Whereas top players once put off having a family because they
thought it would ruin their focus, Djokovic's settled off-court life
means he does not spend too much time dwelling on disappointments
and can quickly focus on the task ahead.
It certainly helped him overcome the utter despair he felt after his
hopes of completing his collection of grand slam titles were dashed
in last month's French Open final by Stan Wawrinka.
"If there is one thing that I learned it is to recover fast and to
leave things behind me and move on," the 28-year-old Serbian said
after he became the oldest man in the professional era to win nine
grand slam titles.
"You can't think about what happened in the French Open or what
happened a few weeks before. You just need to look forward."
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That is exactly what Djokovic is doing as he targets the seven men
-- Federer, Rafa Nadal, Pete Sampras, Roy Emerson, Bjorn Borg, Rod
Laver and Bill Tilden -- who have won more majors than him.
While Federer and Nadal had claimed 15 and 14 grand slam titles
respectively by the time they were 28, Djokovic's recent success
shows he is getting better with age.
"I'm 28. I feel good. I don't feel old. I have hopefully many more
years in front of me," he said.
"I'm going to try to push my own limits and see how far I can go
really with titles and with myself playing on this high level.
"I try to learn from every experience, especially the ones that
don't end up victorious for me. I'm going to keep going."
(Reporting by Pritha Sarkar, editing by Ken Ferris)
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