2021 The Year Of Challenges

After a very strange 2020 full of cancellations and restrictions that thought event organizers and players how to survive and avoid an invisible enemy, a new year is here and things haven't changed much on that front. Social distancing, disinfection, wearing a mask is still a must and a 14 day quarantine is required before any event can take place. In these conditions one can only do so much, but life goes on, as long as events are organized, players have to adapt and continue their journey.

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This year is going to be an interesting one for the tennis community. There are a few top level tennis players who have some serious goals this year, goals that once achieved, will rewrite history.

Roger Federer is holding a few records at the moment as he's been the best player for some time now but his records are about to be broken as he's been absent for one year and things are not looking good for him at the moment, he's going to miss the first competition, the Australian open because his recovery after his knee surgery is not complete.

Novak Djokovic

The Serbian has a lot to accomplish this year. He's No. 1 at the moment and only 10 weeks away from breaking Federer's record of 310 weeks at the top of the FedEx ATP Rankings. He only need to hold the fort until 8 March 2021 and I truly believe he can do that.

Another milestone for him would be 1,000 tour-level victories in 2021. At the moment he has 934 victories at tour-level, so he only needs 66 wins.

Rafael Nadal

Rafa is No. 2 at the moment has some ambitious goals this year, one of which is to become the fourth player to achieve 500 wins on hard court. There are three players in total who has been able to reach to this level and these are Roger Federer with 782 wins, Novak Djokovic follows him with 604 victories and Andre Agassi with 592. Nadal has 486 tour-level hard court wins so far, so he only needs 14 victories this year, which is not hard to accomplish.

Another milestone he's chasing is 800 weeks inside the Top 10 in the FedEx ATP Rankings. He's less than three weeks away from acheving his goal, his record at the moment is 797 weeks since 25 April 2005. The previous record holder is none other than Jimmy Connorswith 789 weeks.

Roger Federer

The Swiss has other plans, he can't chase his own records, so he needs to find himself another great tennis player to surpass his achievements and that is Jimmy Connors. Federer currently has 1,242 victories at tour-level and needs only 32 to reach and surpass Connors.

Next on Federer's list could be the 300 club, which means 300 indoor wins. He has more than 200 right now, so the it may be possible for him to get to 300.

In less than 2 weeks these guys except Federer, are going to Australia to show us what they are capable of. They all have their eyes on the ball but not everything is as easy as it looks like. There are a lot of new and very talented players, full of energy who are also aspiring to win and history shows there are always surprises no matter how good you are.

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Dominic Thiem, Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tzitzipas, Alexander Zverev, Andreiy Rublev are very good players and can change the board in any competition. Let's hope these guys are in a very good shape, injury free and can make their opponents work for a victory. I like matches that are difficult and both players work hard to win.

Novak Djokovic is the defending champion this year. I'd love to see the schedule but the main draw begins on 8 February.