Novak Djokovic nominated for historic international sporting honour
Novak Djokovic has made a shortlist to be honoured as the greatest global athlete of 2021 by a prestigious and storied institution
The 20-time Slam champion has claimed a myriad of trophies across his playing career, as well as a swath of awards from outside the sport.
Now, that list could get even longer, as Djokovic has been nominated for the BBC World Sport Star of the Year.
The award, part of the BBC’s annual Sports Personality of the Year Awards, has a shortlist of five other global sporting stars.
They are boxer Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, jockey Rachael Blackmore, American football quarterback Tom Brady, sprinter and five-time Olympic gold medallist Elaine Thompson-Herah, and Formula One driver Max Verstappen.
The Sports Personality of the Year was first awarded in 1954, with the global award introduced in 1960.
Djokovic has won the honour once before, back in 2011 when he first achieved the world number one ranking after claiming his maiden Wimbledon title by defeating Rafael Nadal in the final.
Fellow 20-time Slam champions Roger Federer and Nadal have also won the award.
Federer did so four times in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2017, while Nadal won in 2010 soon after he completed the Career Grand Slam by winning that year’s US Open.
Martina Hingis, Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf and Martina Navratilova are just a handful of other tennis stars who have won the award in the past 60 years.
Breakthrough Slam star Emma Raducanu will almost certainly be nominated in the ceremony for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, which only British athletes are eligible for.
By winning the US Open, she became the first British women’s singles Major champion since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.
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