Larry Brown Sports

Novak Djokovic is the current No. 1 player in the world, and he is drawing some high praise from Pete Sampras. The retired tennis legend says he thinks Djokovic can challenge his record of finishing No. 1 in the rankings at year’s end for six years in a row.

Sampras held the top spot in the world rankings at year’s end from 1993-1998. Djokovic has done it twice in a row. Sampras thinks the Serbian player can do it for many more years.

“I do [think Djokovic can remain No. 1 for years]. I was thinking about that when he won Monte Carlo,” Sampras told TENNIS.com in a conference call with the media. “He could stay No. 1 for quite a while, five or six years in a row. Realistically, if he stays healthy, he could very well do it.”

Sampras was doing the call to promote the second annual Greenbrier Champions Tennis Classic, which is on September 21-22. He referenced Djokovic’s impressive win at the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters last week. Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal 6-2, 7-6 on clay, which is Nadal’s specialty.

Sampras cited Djokovic’s versatility as a reason why he could challenge the mark.

“He’s so good. Really, even though the players are great today, I think he really only has to be concerned with a couple of them,” Sampras told TENNIS.com. “Roger [Federer] and Rafa and [Andy] Murray are the only ones that can really push him. I see him—if he stays healthy—staying on top for as long as he wants to be. I just think he’s that good. He wins on hard court, he wins on clay, he wins on grass. He’s done it all. I think he can stay on top for as long as he wants to be.”

Djokovic, 25, has already won six majors. He has won the Australian Open four times and Wimbledon and the US Open once. The only major to elude him has been the French — just like Sampras — though he has come much closer to winning at Roland Garros than Pete ever did. He lost to Nadal at the finals of the French Open last year, so winning at Monte Carlo this year should be a huge confidence boost for him. He also bounced back from his five-set loss to Murray at the US Open with a four-set win in the finals of the Australian in January.

Being No. 1 at year’s end for another four straight seasons would not be easy. Djokovic would have to avoid injuries and a down season. But if anyone can do it, it’s certainly him.

Photo: Twitter/Novak Djokovic

Lance Armstrong has decided he finally feels like admitting what we have all known to be true for many years — he’s a cheater. He seems to think that by coming clean in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he can begin the process of being forgiven, but it’s hardly that simple. Armstrong lied for years. He pressured his teammates into doping. He threatened those who refused to help him cover up his scheme. For those reasons, tennis star Novak Djokovic has no respect for the seven-time Tour de France champion.

“I mean, you know, I think everybody was expecting him to (come clean),” Djokovic said during an interview at the Australian Open. “I mean, it would be ridiculous for him to decline and refuse all the charges because it has been proven. They have like a thousand proofs that he’s positive. I think it’s a disgrace for the sport to have an athlete like this.

“He cheated the sport. He cheated many people around the world with his career, with his life story. I think they should take all his titles away because it’s not fair towards any sportsman, any athlete. It’s just not the way to be successful. So I think he should suffer for his lies all these years.”

While I certainly agree that Armstrong is a disgrace (as we outlined in detail earlier this week), whether or not he cheated the sport is debatable. As Ty Duffy of The Big Lead pointed out, doping in cycling is hardly limited to Armstrong.

It’s like steroid usage in baseball. Did players during the steroid era cheat? Certainly. But ratings and attendance numbers were through the roof, and fans certainly enjoyed watching balls fall out of the park. The players may have cheated, but the enjoyment was real. The same can be said of cycling, which gained popularity and roped in new viewers every time Armstrong was going for another Tour de France title. I’m sure the television networks aren’t all that upset that Armstrong was doping all those years.

Novak Djokovic and a group of fans had a bit of a scare on Monday after a railing that was separating the autograph seekers from the world’s No. 1 tennis player collapsed. As you can see from the video above, several fans — including some children — went tumbling onto Djokovic and appeared to hurt some part of his lower body. He limped into the locker room after his victory over Andreas Seppi and later told reporters he was fine.

“It was a bit of a shock and I’m glad that the children involved are OK,” Djokovic said according to The Telegraph. “I am fine.”

Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. Djokovic later paired with Ana Ivanovic and won his doubles match, so it seems safe to say that the minor injury didn’t have a lasting effect. The incident itself, however, may have. Djokovic may have never thought he had to be on his toes while signing autographs, but I’m sure people failing through railings will be in the back of his mind every time he does so in the future.

Bizarre injury? Sure, but we’ve seen weirder. Just ask Andy Murray and his strained buttocks.

H/T Game On!

Earlier this month, we learned about the world’s most expensive cheese. It is apparently made from donkeys, produced at only one farm in the world and can bring the cost of a burger up to $4,000 when piled on top of it. We also thought that Novak Djokovic liked the Serbian cheese (also known as “pule”) so much that he purchased the entire annual supply of it for his chain of restaurants in Serbia.

According to the world’s top-ranked tennis player, that is not entirely true. In fact, Djokovic said he is just learning about the cheese himself.

“It is not completely true that we have bought the whole supply of donkey cheese, even though it was the first time in my life I heard that donkey cheese existed,” he told the Herald Sun in Australia.

“There is a certain farm in Serbia that produces it and, as I understand it, it is the only farm in the world to do so, which is very interesting. They came to our restaurant and offered co-operation, so that is all. We are now thinking and seeing what we can do with that, but it is not true that I already bought the whole supply.”

Djokovic said he knows the cheese — which sells for around $500 a pound — is high quality, but he certainly didn’t sound like a man who knows enough about it to purchase an entire year’s supply and start serving $1,000 omelettes with it. Perhaps he is simply a business owner who is playing coy and attempting to keep his secrets under wraps? It’s certainly a possibility.

Donkey cheese may be the one thing in life Novak Djokovic likes as much as tennis. That’s right — donkey cheese. Djokovic is opening a chain of restaurants, and he apparently wanted to make sure they are supplied with enough gourmet cheese straight from his home country of Serbia.

According to The Telegraph, Djokovic bought up the entire annual production of donkey cheese from Serbia, which is the world’s most expensive cheese.

The cheese is produced at a farm in Serbia called Zasavica, which is the only farm in the world that makes the cheese. It is made only from donkeys, and Zasavica manager Slobodan Simic says it takes 25 liters of donkey milk to make a single kilogram of donkey cheese, also known as pule. Simic said the fact that Djokovic purchased the entire supply made it easy for all parties involved.

“It will save a lot of effort having to deal with various restaurants, with only one customer buying the lot we don’t have to worry too much about salesmen,” he explained. “It is a great vote of confidence as well in what we do here.”

How expensive is it? Earlier this year, a burger selling in Las Vegas that was topped with the cheese was selling for more than $4,000. It was also featured in a caviar-coated omelette at a fancy hotel in New York that sold for the modest price of around $1,000. The fact that Zasavica is the only farm in the world where Donkey cheese is helps explain why it costs $4,000 for a burger that is topped with pule. Wait a minute, no it doesn’t…

Novak Djokovic loves to clown around, and he was at his best during an exhibition match in Brazil two weekends ago.

Djokovic was in Brazil for the inauguration of a public tennis court in the Rocinha shantytown ahead of the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. He was facing retired three-time French Open champion and Brazilian native Gustavo Kuerten on Saturday Nov. 17 at the Maracanazinho Arena when he decided to mess around during a side change.

After some Brazilian models standing behind began rubbing him, Nole took off his shirt for a massage. Filled with plenty of nervousness and laughter, the girls began rubbing his neck, shoulder, and arms. Djokovic, the consummate actor, spread his arms wide and gave a relaxed look on his face before ending the massage with a nod of satisfaction.

The No. 1-ranked player’s jokes didn’t end there. He also put on a wig to impersonate Kuerten:

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The two top-ranked tennis players in the world support fellow player Andy Murray’s desire to have more stringent drug testing in the sport.

Speaking ahead of the Masters event in Paris two weeks ago, Murray said he wanted harsher drug testing in tennis, including more blood tests. Both world No. 1-ranked Novak Djokovic and world No. 2 player Roger Federer support those changes.

“I feel I’m being less tested now than six, seven, eight years ago,” Federer said on Monday in London ahead of the ATP World Finals, according to the BBC.

“I don’t know the reasons we are being tested less and I agree with Andy, we don’t do a lot of blood testing during the year. I’m OK having more of that.”

“I just think it’s important to have enough tests out there,” said Federer. “I don’t like it when I’m only getting tested whatever number it is, which I don’t think is enough or sufficient during the year.

“I think we should up it a little bit, or a lot – whatever you want to call it – because I think it’s key and vital that the sport stays clean. It’s got to. We have a good history in terms of that and we want to make sure that it stays that way.”

Djokovic, who moved ahead of Federer in the ATP Tour rankings this week, agreed with Federer.

“We are trying to make this sport as clean as possible, as fair as possible for everybody, so I have nothing against testing and, why not, we should do it more.”

Now that three of the top players in the world have voiced their opinion, I would expect tennis officials to respond by enacting a more strict testing policy. Perhaps players will be tested more frequently, regardless of their ranking.