TENNIS in DEPTH.

Novak Djokovic is eyeing sporting immortality after denying Rafael Nadal once again to dramatically defend his Australian Open crown at Melbourne Park. Serbia’s tennis super-Novak outlasted Nadal 5-7 6-4 6-2 6-7(5) 7-5 in the longest men’s Grand Slam final in history – a brutal five-hour, 53-minute encounter that started on Sunday night and finished at 1:37 am on Monday morning. The gripping contest eclipsed Mats Wilander’s four-hour, 54-minute win over Ivan Lendl in the 1988 US Open final. It was also the longest match in Australian Open history, surpassing Nadal’s five-hour, 14-minute semifinal win in 2009 over countryman Fernando Verdasco and left both combatants almost out on their feet at Rod Laver Arena. Djokovic’s epic triumph from a service break down in the fifth and deciding set placed the 24-year-old alongside his vanquished Spanish foe and fellow all-time greats Roger Federer, Pete Sampras and Rod Laver as only the fifth man in the 45-year open era to win three consecutive majors. Djokovic will now head to the French Open in May bidding to join the legendary Laver in an exclusive club of just two players to have held all four Grand Slam men’s singles trophies simultaneously. And after thwarting Nadal for a seventh straight time in nine phenomenal months, Djokovic will arrive at Roland Garros also striving to become the first man since Donald Budge in 1937-38 to complete a non-calendar-year Grand Slam sweep.

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