Where Wertheim comes in is by saluting Djokovic's season in his own SI Sportsman dissenting opinion, a solid and quick read here. The Ivy-educated scribe lays out his high-octane, offensive defense for Djokovic as 2011's truest beacon of athletic light.
Ah, well. Maybe next year. After all, he remains in the ranks of Federer and Nadal as this goes. That trio, in addition to the likes of Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Serena Williams, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, and Venus Williams, has never been tapped as Sportsmen of the Year. (And g'luck to a foreigner like Graf, who herself won the Golden Slam—every major and Olympic gold—in 1988.)
Not since 1976, actually, has tennis garnered that recognition, and then it was the so-called Ice Queen, Chris Evert, dominated the cover ... even if she was done up as Mary Poppins with a wooden stick. Evert did attend the Sportsman bash this year, and posed with the likes of fellow past Sportsmen winners Sugar Ray Leonard and David Robinson, who hail from boxing and basketball. She struck all the right shots in a fetching blue dress and beige heels.
It's true that Arthur Ashe graced the SI Sportsman cover in 1992, but that was more for humanitarian work and "devotion to family" than for his athletic prowess. He would die less than two months later at age 49.
Brad Gilbert of, well, everywhere—okay, ESPN—and James LaRosa of Tennis Channel both said their pieces about the Djokovic and tennis exemptions in the Sportsman formula. (BG here, JL here.) This is not to pile on, but the question remains: What sort of dominance does it take?
It seems that Djokovic—or someone, anyone, but presumably a member of the Top 3—has to win all four Grand Slams to truly get the attention of one of America's bastions of sports journalism. That feat is unlikely at this point, but did anyone figure Novak would be such the X-factor in 2011 either?
Keep your ear to the ground. There's already a rumbling Down Under in Melbourne.
—Jonathan Scott (@jonscott9)
