Free Friday: JoeBlogs Sportsperson of the Year

On Thursday, it was announced that Sports Illustrated named Deion Sanders Sportsperson of the Year, and I guess there’s been a bit of a hubbub, a hullabaloo, a hurly-burly, if you will, over this choice, since Coach Prime’s Colorado squad went 1-8 after a couple of exciting early upsets, and you could argue that finishing 12th in the Pac-12 might not quite be quite Sportsperson of the Year stuff. The counterargument is that Sanders pumped all sorts of life into college football and into the Colorado football community, and I’m not here for that argument.

I’m here to say that someone had perhaps the greatest ever year in their sport, and while I wouldn’t say it has gone unnoticed — it has not gone unnoticed — it has not been put in the proper context.

You can argue all you want about the non-sports part of this, but…

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Sportsperson of the Year in 2023 was Novak Djokovic.

In 2023, this is what Novak Djokovic did:

— He won the Australian Open one year after being cleared to come and then being deported for refusing to be vaccinated. He crushed Stefanos Tsitsipas in a three-set final. After that match, he admitted that he played the tournament through a painful hamstring tear; he had to adjust his game and become more offensive than normal in order to pull off the victory. That was his 22nd grand slam title, tying Rafael Nadal for the most in men’s tennis history.

— He won the French Open for the third time, becoming the only player to have won all the Grand Slam tournaments three times. He was already the only player of the Open Era to have won them all twice. He outlasted brilliant young star Carlos Alcaraz in a grueling semifinal (Alcaraz finally succumbed after cramping up) and then took out Casper Ruud in a three-set final. This gave him 23 grand slams, the most ever in men’s tennis.

— He reached the Finals of Wimbledon for the ninth time and, in a match for the ages, lost to Alcaraz in five thrilling sets. Djokovic, for the many controversies he has stirred up through the years, is as gracious a loser as anyone in tennis history, and he heaped enormous praise on the young Alcaraz.

— In Cincinnati, Djokovic and Alcaraz played an incredible and all-consuming match in the Ohio heat; at different points, each player seemed out on his feet. Alcaraz won the first set and Djokovic seemed physically destroyed, and it would have been no surprise for him to simply take the loss and rest up for the U.S. Open. Instead, he came back and won the final two sets, both in tiebreakers, and called it one of the proudest and gutsiest victories of his career.

— He won the U.S. Open, outclassing Daniil Medvedev (who had just taken out Alcaraz in an inspired effort) in three sets. That was his 24th grand slam victory, putting him two clear of Nadal and anyone else.

— At the year-end Nitto ATP Masters, Djokovic actually lost an exciting knockout round match to the brilliant young Italian Jannik Sinner, and was in danger of being knocked out of the tournament. But the breaks broke his way, and he ended up utterly destroying Alcaraz in the semifinal and utterly destroying Sinner in the final.

Say what you will about Djokovic’s act, but you’ve gotta give it up for the year he had on the court. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images for ITF)

I understand that this will sound hyperbolic, but I do mean it: It’s possible that nobody has ever played better tennis than Djokovic did in those two matches. I’m not alone in thinking that, either: After one electrifying point, Nick Kyrgios — who is not prone to overpraising anybody — shouted out something to the effect of “Novak Djokovic is the greatest human being to ever touch a tennis racket!”

You know what? That’s one extraordinary year. I think when you’re looking at greatest years in the history of tennis, you have the Rod Laver grand slams, Steffi Graf’s golden slam, Serena Williams’ Serena Slam, Novak’s own Novak Slam, plus amazing seasons from countless others — Chris Evert (who actually did win SI’s Sportsperson of the Year) and John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova and Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi and, obviously, numerous impossibly great years from Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. I’m very surprised Fed didn’t win a Sportsperson Award.

But this Novak year? At age 36? When great young players are finally emerging? I don’t think it has been topped.

I do get that there are plenty of people who, for various reasons, do not believe Djokovic is worthy of awards — heck, he was just left off the finalist list for tennis’ sportsmanship award, and he’s unlikely to win the fan favorite award. He has never won either of those awards.*

*Though, to be fair, almost nobody else has, either — Federer and Nadal have swept both those awards for the last 15 years.

Djokovic has been outspoken, defiant, temperamental and unapologetic. He also has been extraordinarily generous, thoughtful, hard-working and brilliant. In this amazing year, he more or less shut down the whole “Who’s the greatest tennis player ever?” argument. Yes, obviously, anyone can continue to fight for their favorite, continue to make cogent arguments for Federer or Nadal or Laver or Serena or anybody else, but it is Djokovic, whose unfathomable achievements and mind-numbing statistics and breathtaking ability to be whatever he needs to be on the court, that rules the day.

Novak Djokovic is your JoeBlogs Sportsperson of the Year.

Happy Friday! Our Friday posts are free so everyone can enjoy them. Just a reminder that Joe Blogs is a reader-supported newsletter, and I’d love and appreciate your support.

I promise you that I’m not saying this as some sort of political statement … but I did want to let you know that I won’t be checking Twixter any longer. I’m saying this because I haven’t really been checking it for a while, so I didn’t see the need for any grand pronouncement, but the other day, I went on there and saw a bunch of people had written things there, hoping to reach me for some reason or another.

Well, I’m still plenty reachable — you can email me through my website, you can check me out on numerous other social media platforms, including Instagram (JPosnanski) and BlueSky (Joeposnanski.bsky.social).

I’m hardly a BlueSky evangelist, but it seems promising enough, and if you would like to try it out but do not have an invitation code, well, I have six of them which I will enclose below:

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If those run out, I think Alan Sepinwall has lots of them and might be willing to share, though I will say that this coming week is our PosCast Holiday Draft, so, you know, we’ll just have to see how we feel about Sepinwall after that.

Hey, if you feel like it, I’d love if you’d share this post with your friends!

JoeBlogs Week in Review

Monday: Brown Diary, Week 12: On the Run.

Wednesday: My Baseball Free-Agent Predictions.

Thursday: A letter from Tom Hanks!