Djokovic increased his career haul to 11 Grand Slam titles, including four of the last five, to join Rod Laver and Bjorn Borg at No. 5 on the all-time list.
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He also equalled the tally of Australia’s Roy Emerson, who won the tournament six times between 1961 and 1967, an achievement that has gone unmatched in the 49 years since – until Sunday. He will be looking to win a Golden Slam this year after missing out on it last year after he lost the French Open final to Stan Wawrinka.
In a classy post-match speech to the crowd at Rod Laver Arena, Murray thanked nearly everyone in the building, and fought back tears while talking about his wife.
Novak Djokovic is honoured to be classed among the greats of the game and says making history motivates him to win even more titles. That puts him fifth equal, with just Roy Emerson, whose record of six Australian Opens he matched, on 12, Pete Sampras and Rafael Nadal on 14 and Federer still out on his own at 17.
The men’s final of the Australian Open is a replay of the 2015 final, and features the two top-ranked players in the game. But tennis is a sport of two players and Djokovic needs a true competitor across the net to make his matches truly compelling. “When you’re a grand slam victor things change in your life and now, for the11th time, it’s truly fantastic so I’m trying to obviously cherish every moment of it, nurture it and hopefully use it as a motivation for further challenges”.
Murray later told reporters, “I’ve been held on flights for it feels like five days”.
“After maintaining his flawless record in six finals at Melbourne Park – and extending his old friend Andy Murray’s streak to five losses from five championship deciders Down Under – Djokovic had hundreds of Serbian fans singing and chanting his name so loudly he could barely hear questions in a TV interview”. The timing is also not on Murray’s side, with Djokovic getting an extra day of rest after his four-set defeat of Roger Federer in Thursday’s semifinal.
Only his former coach Ivan Lendl has lost as many at one grand slam and he at least wedged three U.S. Open titles in between the defeats.
Djokovic broke Murray twice in a 30-minute opening set, and twice again in the second and once in the third, and only had his serve broken twice.
Murray, the 28-year-old Scotsman, paid tribute to his pregnant wife Kim, who is due to have their first child in February and remained in Britain.
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The Serb, however, serves successive double faults to give Murray a break point but he is unable to capitalise and the five-times champion seals it after an 80-minute set. I just want to get home’. “I don’t think about limiting my ambitions or what I might be able to achieve”. Murray began to slowly find his game in the second setand took a 2-1 lead after saving four break points and finishing it off with an ace.
