Novak Djokovic snub for top award irks his fans, but analyst insists ‘Novak is not a great sport on court’

ATP Tour
Novak Djokovic in action

Novak Djokovic has once again been left out of the list of nominees for the ATP’s Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award, much to the dismay of his fans; although one analyst says he doesn’t deserve to be nominated.

Eleven players have been nominated for the sportsmanship award, but Djokovic is not among them with Cameron Norrie, Carlos Alcaraz, Casper Ruud, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Frances Tiafoe, Grigor Dimitrov, Hubert Hurkacz, Lorenzo Musetti, Matteo Berrettini, Maxime Cressy and Rafael Nadal in the running for the gong.

ATP players vote for the winner themselves and the award is given to “the player who, throughout the year, conducted himself at the highest level of professionalism and integrity, who competed with his fellow players with the utmost spirit of fairness and who promoted the game through his off-court activities”.

Nadal is looking to win the award for a sixth time, but he is still well short of Roger Federer’s record of 13 awards. In fact, Federer and Nadal are the only ones to have won the award the past 18 years with Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand the last player to win the gong before their dominance back in 2013.

Djokovic’s fans are not happy that the 21-time Grand Slam winner wasn’t even nominated with one accusing the media of working against the Serbian.

“Again the cabal of @atptour @DKTNNS @jon_wertheim @Martina @PHShriver do mass media against Novak. I respect @ChrissieEvert and @rennaestubbs for having empathy,” the fan tweeted.

Former doubles world No 1 and four-time Grand Slam women’s doubles champion Rennae Stubbs hit back as she doesn’t think Djokovic is a good sport on court.

“Nothing to do with that. Novak is not a great sport on court, he’s been defaulted, broken racquets, etc. among other things,” she wrote.

“He’s absolutely a gracious loser, I’ll give him that, but this award is for sportsmanship on and off court. So don’t make this about anything but that.”

Tennis greats Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert have already given their favourite for the award with Navratilova tweeting: “FAA (Felix Auger-Aliassime) would get my vote. But I don’t vote:)”

Evert replied: “@Felixtennis would get my vote also….Boy, @Martina you and @Rennaestubbs had a busy night tonight!!!.”

Novak Djokovic

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