Novak Djokovic: 13th most influential personality in the world – Tennis News
Reigning world number one, Novak Djokovic, hits another landmark. He breaks into the list of the Top-100 most Influential People in the world, according to the Times Magazine’s research. He had an emphatic season last year, dethroning
the two world class athletes; the Swiss Maestro, Roger Federer and the King of Clay, Rafael Nadal.
Serbian tennis icon has bagged four of the five recent Grand Slam titles just failing to overpower the number one Spanish player, Nadal, in the Roland Garros French Open, last year. The editor of Time Magazine, Bill Saporito, praised
the 24-year-old superstar in following words, “While he yukked it up, he also upped his training regimen and refined his exquisite baseline shot-making. No one has a more lethal backhand down the line. He got mentally tougher too.”
The editor further added, “With Nadal and Federer hounding him, staying No. 1 will be difficult.” In the list, Djokovic was also joined by five other sport personalities featuring the likes of Jeremy Lin, Oscar Pistorious, Tim
Tebow, Yani Tseng and Barcelona’s most threatening striker, Lionel Messi.
Time Magazine added following words to honour the Serb, “If an athlete makes you cheer, he or she is influencing your life. If an athlete offers an escape, that escape is indeed influential in your life. If an athlete inspires
– well, that’s the definition of influence, right? World-class athletes, by nature, are influential, especially in today’s media-saturated world. They are objects of our intrigue, on a 24-7 basis.”
However, seeing the legacy of this game, one can easily say that tennis has been one of the most influential and followed sport all over the world. The statistics also prove this fact; five out of last six editions of Time Magazine
has featured one of the tennis sporting personalities in the list of most influential people. It clearly shows that tennis dominates the world of sport as much as football. Federer was listed in 2007 and 2010 whilst his arch rival Nadal was in the list of
2009 and 2011 edition.
He was ranked 13th in the list and surprisingly, the online poll ranked Djokovic higher than Adele, Barack Obama and the owner of the social networking site facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. At the moment, the Serbian is playing
his first clay court tournament of the year, the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, in France; looking to dethrone Nadal who has been winning this title for the past seven years.
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