Novak Djokovic is without a doubt one of the best players to ever swing a racket when it comes to male tennis – if not the undisputed GOAT.
The Serbian won more major titles than Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and he’s still gunning for the big titles with the two other members of the big three now retired.
Djokovic has recently appointed Andy Murray as his coach for the Australian Open and he’s keen to still compete for another Grand Slam title at 37-years-old.
The legendary figure has been keen to appoint a new coach for a little while and perhaps he’s aiming to avoid a repeat of 2017 when he suffered one of his lowest ebbs in professional tennis.
In 2017, Djokovic arrived having won the Melbourne-based Grand Slam in 2015 and 2016 as well in five of the previous six years – but the script for this edition of the event wasn’t given a proper read-through by Istomin.
The Uzbekistan-born minnow sent shockwaves through the tennis world and dumped Djokovic out of the tournament in the second round.
After coming through a first-round clash against Croatian player Ivan Dodig, Istomin set up a clash with defending champion Djokovic in the biggest match of his career.
Istomin played well from the off. He took the first set 7-6 and even when Djokovic bounced back to take the second set 7-5 and the third set 6-2, Istomin just wouldn’t go away.
He won another tie-breaker to take it to a deciding set and then managed to get a break to win 6-4 in the fifth set and produce one of the most astonishing results in the history of the Australian Open.
After beating Djokovic, Istomin didn’t suffer from a case of after the Lord Mayor’s Show which is such a common place in sport after a major upset is caused.
He would win in round three against Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta before losing in four sets to Grigor Dimitrov, despite taking the first set against the Bulgarian.
Istomin’s career didn’t really take off as it should have done though. He’s been retired since February 2024 when he called time on his career after Uzbekistan had played Poland in the Davis Cup.
He does still play doubles with Russian star Evgeny Karlovskiy but as far as his singles career goes, he’s called it quits having failed to reach the top 30 in world tennis, with his 2021 placing of 33rd the highest he ever reached.
Istomin became a symbolic figure for the famous glasses he used to wear out on court and his win over Djokovic remains one of the biggest and best shocks that the game of tennis has ever seen.
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