Novak Djokovic reached the highest of the tennis mountain Sunday, dominating Casper Ruud in straight units to win the French Open males’s singles title for a 3rd time and a lot extra.

With probably the most momentous championship of his exceptional profession to this point, Djokovic has staked his declare to being the best male tennis participant in historical past, with a report 23 Grand Slam match singles titles.

Djokovic defeated Rudd 7-6 (1), 6-3, 7-5. On his second match level, Djokovic induced Ruud right into a closing forehand off the courtroom and collapsed on his again. He then knelt in prayer in the course of the courtroom and headed for the stands to embrace his household and his coaches.

Tournament after match, Djokovic has spent a lot of the final 20 years chasing his rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the 2 different giants who’ve outlined this period of contemporary tennis. That race has come to an finish, a minimum of for now.

Djokovic, 36, surpassed the retired Federer final summer season, at Wimbledon’s Centre Court on the grass that Federer had dominated for thus lengthy, when he gained his twenty first Grand Slam title. In January on the Australian Open, Djokovic gained once more. That twenty second title tied Nadal, who missed this 12 months’s French Open with an damage.

On Sunday, with a horde of followers waving Serbian flags and chanting his identify and a solid of stars available for the event, he gained once more, this time for the report books.

The retired N.F.L. quarterback Tom Brady sat subsequent to Jelena, Djokovic’s spouse. The French soccer star Kylian Mbappé and the Swedish soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic sat just a few rows above the courtroom. The American actor Jake Gyllenhaal, the tennis icon Stan Smith and plenty of French actors, singers, businessmen and athletes have been additionally within the stands.

Djokovic did it on the pink clay of the Philippe Chatrier courtroom on the French Open, which Nadal has gained an astonishing 14 instances. A silver statue of the Spanish champion bullwhipping his forehand stands simply a whole bunch of yards away.

Djokovic’s journey has been something however easy. It has been crammed with one self-inflicted disaster after one other, epic battles with Nadal and Federer on the courtroom, early and midcareer fallow seasons, some as a result of he was injured, and a few when he was pressured to overlook tournaments as a result of he wouldn’t waiver from his rules. His most seemingly unattainable activity has been successful the hearts of tennis followers who way back pledged them to the primary two members of the so-called Big Three.

Beyond that, there was the straightforward matter of math. At the tip of 2010, when Djokovic was 23 and practically 5 years previous competing in his first main match, Federer had already gained 16 Grand Slam titles to Djokovic’s one. Any suggestion that Djokovic would possibly sooner or later catch Federer, and even Nadal, who had 9, would have been absurd.

But then 2011 dawned, Djokovic stormed the game, successful the Australian and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon that 12 months. He put collectively a 41-match successful streak and a 10-1 report towards Federer and Nadal. Tennis has by no means been the identical.

There is nobody rationalization for what has transpired since. A brand new, strictly gluten-free eating regimen, giving up alcohol and experimentation with spending time in a pressurized, egg-shaped chamber have all gotten their share of credit score alongside the best way. So has a stretching and calisthenics routine that has turned Djokovic right into a racket-wielding rubber band, seemingly serving to to restrict his accidents.

The boulder-sized chip on his shoulder that Djokovic has stated he has carried since his childhood rising up in the course of the conflict in Serbia hasn’t harm both.

Goran Ivanisevic, Djokovic’s present coach, who’s a Croat, has described a Balkan preventing spirit in Djokovic’s DNA that nobody who has come from outdoors the area can match.

Boris Becker, the retired German champion who coached him for 3 years, stated that in one interval when Djokovic misplaced a sequence of Grand Slam finals, he was punishing himself for an indiscretion that neither Djokovic not Becker has ever talked about intimately. Becker stated Djokovic discovered to forgive himself, and as soon as he did that he turned liberated, and commenced successful with abandon.

The numbers since then defy easy rationalization. With his win Sunday, Djokovic regained the world’s prime rating for a report 388th week. In addition to the report for Grand Slam match titles, he additionally holds the report for Masters 1000 titles, and simply in case any Nadal or Federer followers needed to fault him for being a mere compiler, Djokovic has a successful report towards each Nadal and Federer.

Any hope that Ruud, a gentle and decided Norwegian enjoying in his third Grand Slam closing in 13 months, had of turning Sunday into one thing apart from a coronation dissipated on the finish of a grinding first-set battle that concluded in Djokovic’s signature trend.

Andy Roddick, a former world No. 1, famously stated of Djokovic that “first he comes for your legs, and then he comes for your soul.”

That was about what Djokovic did to Ruud early on Sunday, on his option to historical past.