Speaking exclusively to Tennis365, Marcos Baghdatis has revealed why Novak Djokovic was the toughest opponent he faced in his career as he recalled a match in which he had no answer to the tennis icon\u2019s level.<\/p>\n
Baghdatis amassed a 349-274 record on the ATP Tour during a distinguished professional career spanning from 2003 to 2019.<\/p>\n
During his time in the sport, Baghdatis competed with Djokovic<\/a>, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, who are widely considered to be the three greatest players in tennis history.<\/p>\n The Cypriot, who won four singles titles, peaked at No 8 in the rankings in August 2006 after reaching the Australian Open final and Wimbledon semi-finals that year.<\/p>\n Baghdatis fell in four sets to Federer in the Australian Open title match and lost to Nadal in straight sets in the last four at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n He holds a 1-7 record against Federer and a 1-9 record against Nadal, having beaten both of the legendary duo in 2010; Federer in Indian Wells and Nadal in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n Baghdatis lost all eight of the matches he played against Djokovic, which were spread between 2007 and 2015. He\u00a0won at least a set in five of the eight matches he played against Djokovic, including in all three of the pair\u2019s Grand Slam encounters.<\/p>\n The best match Baghdatis and Djokovic contested was a five-set quarter-final thriller at the 2007 Wimbledon Championships.<\/p>\n In an interview with Tennis365, Baghdatis named Djokovic as his most difficult opponent and spoke about the strength of the era in which he played.<\/p>\n \u201cI would pick Novak Djokovic, just because of the reason that I never beat him. But it\u2019s very hard to pick,\u201d said the Cypriot.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019m saying that, not that they (the Big Three), were the only toughest opponents, but there were so many others.<\/p>\n The inside story on Marcos Baghdatis\u2019 tennis academy in Cyprus\u2019 stunning City of Dreams resort<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Ranking the 10 best ATP Tour matches of 2025 \u2013 ft. Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic, Tien<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThat generation of Andy Murray, Rafa, Roger, Novak \u2014 of course those were the top four that were dominating the sport for many years that I was playing.<\/p>\n \u201cBut behind them, you had the likes of [Juan] del Potro, [Stan] Wawrinka, [Marin] Cilic, [David] Ferrer, you had [Jo-Wilfried] Tsonga, you had [Tomas] Berdych, you had so many players, I think, that were at a very high level.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked to name the period in which Djokovic was performing at his peak level, Baghdatis highlighted the last match he played against the Serb \u2014 which he lost 1-6, 3-6 in the second round of the 2015 Indian Wells Masters.<\/p>\n \u201cI think, whenever I played Novak, [they were] pretty close matches. That\u2019s my thinking. Maybe I\u2019m wrong, but what\u2019s what I remember,\u201d Baghdatis assessed.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think I once got a nice beating out of him, and it was in Indian Wells. It was a 6-1, 6-2 (6-1, 6-3), I came off the court and I felt the guy gave me a lesson.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I never felt like that with another player. I never felt like that with Roger or with Rafa, even when I was younger and I played Roger, I always felt like, \u2018Next time I can beat him\u2019. I always felt that. But with Novak it was\u2026 I didn\u2019t have that feeling, especially after that match.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic compiled a staggering 82-6 record in 2015, winning 11 titles, including three Grand Slams, the ATP Finals and six Masters 1000 events.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Djokovic, Auger-Aliassime, Shelton: Who had 3rd-best 2025 season after Carlos Alcaraz & Jannik Sinner?<\/a> The post Marcos Baghdatis picks between Djokovic, Nadal & Federer as he reveals his toughest opponent<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Speaking exclusively to Tennis365, Marcos Baghdatis has revealed why Novak Djokovic was the toughest opponent he faced in his career as he recalled a match in which he had no answer to the tennis icon\u2019s level. Baghdatis amassed a 349-274 record on the ATP Tour during a distinguished professional career spanning from 2003 to 2019. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Marcos Baghdatis said about his toughest opponent<\/h2>\n
Tennis Features<\/h2>\n
What Marcos Baghdatis said about Novak Djokovic\u2019s highest level<\/h2>\n
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