Novak Djokovic powered to his sixth Australian Open title – matching only Roy Emerson’s record in the open era.
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Djokovic wasted little time in winning the first set and, though Murray battled, the defending champion prevailed 6-1, 7-5, 7-6 (7) .
Andy Murray holds his head as Novak Djokovic addresses the crowd at Melbourne Park.
“To Mr Roy Emerson, who isn’t here tonight, it’s a privilege to match your record of six Australian Open titles”.
After claiming victory in four of the past five matches – falling only in the final of Roland Garros to Stan Wawrinka a year ago – Djokovic isn’t ruling out surpassing Federer’s mark as the most successful grand slam performer in the history of the sport.
And that alone raises the possibility of the true Grand Slam – winning all four Major tournaments in the same calendar year.
Long accustomed to the bugbear of being runner-up at the post-match media conference, Murray said he felt the difference this year was in the unforced error count.
Meanwhile, Murray was emotional during his speech at the award ceremony of the tournament, paying tribute to his heavily pregnant wife Kim. The only Grand Slam singles title he lacks remains the French Open.
He said: “You have been a legend the last two weeks, thank you so much for all of your support”.
“I’m just quite looking forward to getting home now”, he commented. “Had I lost in the third or fourth round it still would have been hard with everything that happened, but she’s been incredible and handled everything unbelievably well”.
The next Grand Slam question for Djokovic is whether he can finally win the big one on clay.
“I think we always kind of talk to each other about it”, said Smith, who led Britain to their first Davis Cup title since 1936 in November.
Although Andy Murray (Scotland) is renowned for his tenacity on the tennis court as well as for his warlike personality, these things did not prove to be to the advantage of the Scottish player.
“I was able to get myself into the net more”.
The Serb also equals Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg’s Grand Slam singles titles at 11, but is still well behind Federer, who has won 17 major titles.
World number one Novak Djokovic hammered a misfiring Andy Murray in straight sets.
As a fresh victor in Melbourne, Djokovic left us with a memorable image: he kissed the tennis ground with joy at the end of the match.
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He dropped to his hands and knees and kissed the court, slapping it with his right hand, and went to the stands to hug Boris Becker, his coach since 2014. He was 5-5 40-0 ahead in the second set with Djokovic under pressure before he came off second best in a spellbinding 36-stroke rally as Djokovic roared back to break before clinching the match in the third set.
