By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, December 1, 2018
Novak Djokovic's generosity with fans earns him the 2018 Tennis Now People's Champ Award.
Photo credit: Novak Djokovic Facebook
Welcome to the inaugural Tennis Now 25, where we celebrate the best popcorn moments of the 2018 tennis season, and award 25 "Popcorn Awards" to honor the most breathtaking and memorable performances of 2018.
About the Awards:
The #TN25 is designed not simply to remember the best matches, comebacks or Grand Slam performances. What we aim to accomplish here is to dig deeper into the archives so that we may celebrate some of the more offbeat and difficult to quantify performances.
This is our first time doling out these awards, and our attempt to veer away from the typical year-end rundown is genuine in that we feel it echoes the season of giving. What we aim to give is praise and thanks to those who made the season memorable on many levels...
Surely, with this being a new process for our editorial staff, there will be a few bumps along the road. Here and there we suspect that our valued readership may find a few things to disagree with (suprise!). If that's the case, take to social media using the hashtag #TN25 and tell us what we missed or where we could have done better.
As the players like to say after they win their titles--none of this would have been possible without you guys, and that's why we are going to put some of the awards to a Twitter vote in December, so stay tuned for that.
But for now, we must get to the awards because we have our first winner!
The People's Champion: Novak Djokovic
The People's Champion Award goes to the player who best embraced the player-fan dynamic by offering up his or her total self to the public over the course of the season.
And the winner is... NOVAK DJOKOVIC
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An elastic Novak Djokovic showed expansive reach downsizing opponents charging to the year-end world No. 1 ranking for the fifth time.
The 31-year-old Serbian made history as the oldest year-end No. 1 in ATP history.
Watch: Federer, Djokovic Disagree on Finals Future
Djokovic's genorosity to his fans has earned him another major title: Tennis Now's 2018 People's Champ of the Year award.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Djokovic's remarkable revival was his eagerness to share the ride with his fans.
Djokovic underwent elbow surgery in February and could barely flex his right elbow, bottomed out with opening-round exits in Indian Wells and Miami, split with coaches Andre Agassi and Radek Stepanek and dropped to No. 22 in the rankings.
Reuniting with coach Marian Vajda, Djokovic not only regained his familiar ferocity and showed his intensity with some epic racquet carnage, he shared the celebration with devoted fans.
The beauty of Djokovic's revival was how much he appreciated the gift of a second chance at full health and made the most of it. Grit was a key component to Djokovic streaking to a 35-3 record in his final 38 matches and gratitude was evident in the Serbian's shared celebration.
Djokovic wrapped up his 6-4, 6-4 triumph over Roger Federer in the Cincinnati final to become the first man to claim the career Golden Masters with this golden moment with a young fan.
"The golden racquet” replied one fan on Twitter.
Indeed.
Credit to Djokovic for this random act of kindness. He can be pretty intense on the court, but when the battle is finished his true colors shine.
That golden gift followed Djokovic giving this young fan a lifetime memory in the Eternal City.
After his Rome victory, Djokovic pulled a brand new stick out of his Head bag and awarded it to this lucky young fan.
The kind gesture elicited this priceless reaction from the boy, who first hugged the racquet to his chest before kissing it.
While players frequently toss wrist bands, towels, even match shirts into the crowd, rarely do we see champions part with their favored racquets, but Djokovic continues to break down barriers between athlete and audience sharing the love.
The 14-time Grand Slam champion wasn't the only player who was a major hit with fans.
Rafael Nadal, David Goffin, Grigor Dimitrov, Nick Kyrgios and the Bryan brothers were among the most generous players we saw this season signing autographs for fans, with Goffin often signing and stopping for selfies with any fan who approached him.
Denis Shapovalov showed class and caring with this gesture during a rain delay in Cincinnati.
Shapovalov pulled a spare chair closer to his and invited a ball kid to have a seat next to him as rain spit down on to Court No. 10. Shapovalov and Milos Raonic had just encountered a rain delay four points into their match—a match that had been delayed four hours by rain—and Shapovalov took it upon himself to show some kindness to the kid.
Tip of the cap to Shapo, who, simply put, gets it, adding to his ever-growing legion of fans with this humane gesture.
Sometimes, when true love walks in the room, everybody—including Dominic Thiem and Fernando Verdasco—stand and applaud.
A tender moment occurred before the Rio Open quarterfinals as a couple got engaged while the night session crowd watched the event take place on the stadium video screen.
Thiem and Verdasco could not help but be moved, and both applauded enthusiastically as the couple celebrated the moments and the rowdy Rio crowd exuberantly cheered in support.
Though he's approaching 60, John McEnroe hasn't lost his thirst for gritty competition—and a cold beer.
Mac showed lightning reactions at net and around the brew during his exhibition match with fellow Hall of Famer Michael Stich at the German Open Tennis Championships in Hamburg.
After the match, the former Wimbledon doubles partners got into the champagne—can you blame them?