Wimbledon Mystery: How Djokovic Wins Despite Skipping Warm-Up Events

| by Sebastian Dahlman

Novak Djokovic has been one of the most dominant players at Wimbledon, winning it seven times so far, just one shy of Roger Federer.

Federer is by many considered the greatest player we've seen on grass and his 8 wins at Wimbledon certainly add to that. Novak Djokovic isn't far away with seven of those, some of which came against Federer in epic fashion.

The Serbian recently became the first man with 23 Grand Slam trophies and this year's Wimbledon is shaping up to be an iconic one. It doesn't get much more iconic than in Paris recently where he also became the first man to win all four Grand Slams at least three times but he could extend these records at SW19. He could add number 24 and tie Federer for the most Wimbledon trophies ever.

It's going to be interesting to see whether he will once again skip all warm-up events. There have been some interesting patterns in the way he prepares for the event. Grass tennis is notoriously specific and while pretty straightforward, most players don't do well without at least having some sort of warm-up. Getting used to the bounces, the timing, and everything else.

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Even Roger Federer always played the Halle Open to get used to playing on grass again. Djokovic generally doesn't, and it's not been a problem. His first win came in 2011 and he played just in an exhibition event which you can hardly consider a competitive match. His 2014 win came without any kind of preparation with the 2015 triumph also seeing him play an exhibition.

2017 saw him play Eastbourne and this time he didn't win Wimbledon which is interesting as he went away from his general preparation pattern. Next year saw the Serb play at the Queen's Club, though this time he did Wimbledon so he learned from the previous year.

Since then Djokovic generally opted against any kind of warm-up tournament, and it's worked out well as he won it three years straight in 2019, 2021, and 2022. So the rule is generally that Djokovic wins Wimbledon but even more so if he doesn't play any competitive event leading up to it which is very different for most players.

It speaks to his greatness and his recent approach to GrandSslams where he starts slow deliberately to peak in the second week. Let's see how he goes about this year.

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