Novak Djokovic Wins His 8th Australian Open Title In 24 Sets As a Perfect Tribute For His Mentor Kobe Bryant
Djokovic def. Thiem 6-4 4-6 2-6 6-3 6-4
Fucking Novak. He's so good. He's so unbelievably good at tennis. 17 grand slam titles now. The guy could look completely out of a match mentally and out of nowhere he flips a switch to take back control in the blink of an eye. In the second set he was given two time violations, the second took away a first serve on a break point. It was total bullshit. He then got broken during that game and lost the second set, leveling the match at one set all. He proceeded to lose his mind on the head chair umpire and tapped his foot as he walked by. Some are saying it was physical abuse. Some are saying he should not be allowed to play tennis again, which would be unfortunate given how close he is to Federer's 20 career grand slams. That would be quite the shame wouldn't it?
Djokovic looked absolutely cooked after the 3rd set after dropping it 6-2 to go down 2 sets to 1. Nope, he just locked in even more and jumped on Thiem to comeback and win the match. This is Djokovic's EIGHTH (8) Australian Open title. Australia is turning into Novak's version of Roland Garros for Rafa. You play him down under, you lose.
It's pretty cool that it took him 24 sets to win his 8th Aussie Open for Kobe. Did he do it on purpose? I mean he's so good at tennis that you could probably convince me he threw away the 2nd and 3rd sets just to give himself a challenge. Kobe Bryant was his mentor and a close friend. Since the tragedy happened Djokovic added some KB 8 24 lettering to his warmup jacket.
Here was Novak after his first match following the tragic news. He was very emotional.
And here he is last night after winning the title talking about him.
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Djokovic gets a bad rap because he's always the one beating the fan favorites Federer and Nadal these days, but he's a good dude and a helluva competitor. It just sucks that Big Cat likes him only to troll me, and all he does is win. Goddammit.