The sport of tennis is filled with glorious tales of youngsters making it big on the tour. Take the example of Coco Gauff. When she was just 15 years old, the American sensation defeated legend Venus Williams at the Wimbledon Championships. Indeed, that set the tone for her to rise even further in her career. Yesterday, another such tale repeated as 23-year-old Olga Danilovic won the biggest title of her career. Subsequently, she earned praise from her compatriot, Novak Djokovic.

Danilovic went on to defeat the United States’ Caroline Dolehide in the summit clash of the Guangzhou Open to win the biggest trophy of her career. Interestingly, it was also her maiden title on the WTA Tour this year. Danilovic was a dominant force in the entire tournament in Guangzhou and lost just a solitary set in the entire event. Further, she outplayed Dolehide too with her powerful shot-making and won the final in straight sets 6-3, 6-1. The win also enabled Danilovic to rise at a striking distance of the top 50 of the WTA rankings and she is now placed on the 52nd spot.

The 24-time Grand Slam champion took to his official Instagram handle to appreciate the efforts of Danilovic on the brilliant title win. Sharing a picture of Danilovic holding the Guangzhou Open trophy via an Instagram story, Djokovic reacted with a series of emojis. Among them were muscle-flexing emoji, clap emoji, hailing emoji, lightning and trophy emojis. Like many of the fans, Djokovic was also impressed with Danilovic’s performance throughout the event. Djokovic and Danilovic go way back. She is a Djokovic superfan!

In a 4-month-old interview with Tumblr, Danilovic revealed the reason behind choosing tennis: “I was watching Novak Djokovic on tv, I don’t remember if it was during Roland Garros or Wimbledon but it was during the beginning of summer time. I felt that could be a nice sport so I tried it.”

Furthermore, when asked about Serbian players, the 23-year-old had a special mention reserved for the Serb. “He was my idol and will be my idol forever. I love him for his game, his attitude, his life, his achievements, everything. I think everyone should have the passion he always show. I can’t say anything else a part that he’s the best”.

And earlier this season, Danilovic got to play alongside her idol in the United Cup. Danilovic couldn’t stop but heap praise on her legendary compatriot.

Olga Danilovic speaks highly about Novak Djokovic

Djokovic and Danilovic found success playing together and defeated the pair of Qinwen Zheng and Zhizhen Zhang in the mixed doubles encounter at the United Cup. The Serbian duo displayed great coherence and outplayed the Chinese duo in the tournament earlier this year. Subsequently, Danilovic was left in awe of Djokovic’s greatness and praised him.

During an interview at the 2024 French Open, she said, “I played with him United Cup this year, it was like a bucket list for me to play doubles with him and to win. It was such a relief when we won because it was something that I really wanted to say, ‘I played with Novak and I won!’ Having that kind of person in the same sport as me, for me, he’s just a very humble and nice guy. Especially that he’s the No. 1 in the world and for me, he’s the greatest of all time.”

Danilovic was due to participate in the Jiangxi Open after her success in Guangzhou. However, she has withdrawn from the tournament due to unspecified reasons. Nonetheless, she would hope to continue her winning run when she steps onto the court in the upcoming tournaments.