Wimbledon icon: Novak Djokovic

Despite recently turning 37, Novak Djokovic remains one of the best tennis players on the planet as he prepares to challenge for an eighth Wimbledon crown this year.

Djokovic's participation at SW19 this year is in doubt this year, however, with the Serbian forced to pull out of the French Open due to a knee injury following a fourth round victory over Argentine Francisco Cerundolo.

The Belgrade native is a force to be reckoned with on grass, and should he make a return to fitness in time for Wimbledon, he will enter the tournament amongst the favourites.

Wimbledon predictions, odds and news ahead of this year's tournament.

Djokovic took time to sparkle on grass

Despite winning his first Grand Slam at 20 years of age at the Australian Open in 2008, Djokovic took his time to adapt to the grass and first conquer Wimbledon.

It took until his seventh appearance in the grass-court major in 2011, when aged 24, for him to find the winning touch as he ended Rafael Nadal's reign as Wimbledon champion.

The Serb replaced Nadal as world number one following that final success and since that triumph only twice in 11 attempts has he failed to reach the semi-final stage.

There have been Wimbledon lows to match the highs since he made his breakthrough 12 years ago, most notably in 2016 when he suffered a surprise third-round defeat to big-serving American Sam Querrey.

In the following season, Djokovic was then forced to retire during his quarter-final clash with Tomas Berdych, a result that allowed Federer to maintain his Wimbledon dominance.

However, in the style of a true champion, Djokovic came back even stronger from those setbacks and he has not endured defeat at Wimbledon ever since.

The 36-year-old has won four straight Wimbledon titles - 2020 was an absent year - and there is no sign of that superiority relenting any time soon.

Federer record provides plenty of motivation

As things stand, the recently-retired Federer is the most decorated male in Wimbledon history with eight title triumphs, the latest of which came in 2017.

Federer's total could have been considerably higher had it not been for the steely defence of Djokovic, who silenced the Swiss legend in the finals in 2014, 2015 and 2019.

But Djokovic is now hot on Federer's heels and the Serb will be determined to move level with that achievement this season, keen for retribution following last year's loss to Carlos Alcaraz in the final.

Serb has been prone to slow starts

The end result is ultimately all that matters, but last year's triumph showed that Djokovic can often take time to hit top stride.

In five of Djokovic's seven matches in 2022 he dropped a set - and from the quarter-final onwards he found himself in a spot of bother having lost the opening set.

In fact, in his quarter-final win over Jannik Sinner, Djokovic had lost the first two sets and needed to dig extremely deep to pull off a superb comeback, prevailing in an epic five-setter after a three-hour and 39-minute classic.

Fatigue could have been expected on the back of that and the Serbian again lost the first set of his semi-final clash with British number one Cameron Norrie.

A similar scenario panned out in his title decider with the charismatic Nick Kyrgios, too, as the Australian landed the first blow by winning the opener 6-4.

Class prevailed on each occasion as Djokovic again showed his never-say-die character, but age catches up with everybody and it does at least offer some hope for those unlucky enough to face him in this year's Championships.