{"id":345246,"date":"2025-12-14T19:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T19:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/345246\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T19:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T19:11:11","slug":"novak-djokovic-told-which-player-will-rival-his-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/345246\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic told which player will &#8216;rival his numbers&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tennis legend Todd Woodbridge has revealed he expects Jannik Sinner to \u201crival\u201d Novak Djokovic\u2019s numbers as he expressed his wish to see the pair battle it out in 2026.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/jannik-sinner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sinner<\/a> holds a 6-4 record against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/novak-djokovic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Djokovic<\/a> having won the pair\u2019s last five encounters since he last lost to the Serbian at the 2023 ATP Finals.<\/p>\n<p>The duo faced off twice in 2025, with Sinner defeating Djokovic in straight sets in the semi-finals at both the French Open and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the\u00a0Australian Open YouTube Channel, Woodbridge was asked to name the most interesting rivalry in tennis after the rivalry between Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to see the Sinner-Djokovic in 2026, because you know that\u2019s what drives him,\u201d said the former doubles world No 1.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is the rivalry that I want to see more of in 2026. It is going to be the greatest that we know in terms of numbers in Djokovic, and Sinner is going to really rival those numbers, I believe.\u00a0And so, this one (Djokovic) is trying to stop this one (Sinner) from getting near him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot like what was happening when Djokovic was getting close to [Roger] Federer and [Rafael] Nadal, you could see them going, \u2018Oh, I hope he doesn\u2019t win this one.\u2019 And then he did. And Sinner is going to be doing that.<\/p>\n<p>Tennis News<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/novak-djokovic-25th-grand-slam-better-chance-alexander-zverev\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u2018Novak Djokovic has better chance of winning a Grand Slam than Alexander Zverev\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-features\/what-constitutes-a-successful-2026-season-for-novak-djokovic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What constitutes a successful 2026 season for Novak Djokovic?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt Wimbledon this year, I thought that was [Carlos] Alcaraz\u2019s tournament. Sinner wins it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUpon reflection, watching him there, I think he (Sinner) ends up winning more Wimbledons in his career. I think he\u2019s going to rival five, six, maybe seven Wimbledons if everything goes well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just got something that we can watch over an extended period of time, not just next year. What does Sinner do? How does Djokovic halt it while he\u2019s still with us?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 22-time Grand Slam doubles champion went on to argue that Djokovic will be motivated to turn around his losing head-to-head record against Sinner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can love or not love Novak, but what I do love about him is where he finds his energy, his motivation,\u201d Woodbridge continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd he finds it out of those rivalries, out of those moments, not wanting to let them have what he sees as his. So I think this is going to be fun watching both of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, if it\u2019s even on the small scale, he wants to turn around a losing record to Sinner. You can bet on that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>READ NEXT: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/carlos-alcaraz-jannik-sinner-not-unbeatable-atp-tour-open-frances-tiafoe\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ATP Tour star claims there is a \u2018big opening\u2019 despite Carlos Alcaraz &amp; Jannik Sinner dominance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tennis legend Todd Woodbridge has revealed he expects Jannik Sinner to \u201crival\u201d Novak Djokovic\u2019s numbers as he expressed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-345246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}