It isn’t exactly the ‘Last Eight Club’, because far fewer people can join it: the ‘39 Club’, with Novak Djokovic and Lionel Messi as co-presidents, is a dangerous club. Who would want to be part of it? What guarantee is there that, at that age, an athlete can still be a major force in their sport?
The “39 Club” means walking a tightrope. It is most likely a club for retirees.
But, exceptionally, it can be something else.
Just ask the Serb and the Argentine, who, on the very same Tuesday afternoon – both on grass – staged a comeback when everything seemed to suggest the end was nigh. Djokovic was being tormented by a young Canadian, whilst a group of 11 Egyptians were looking to mummify Messi. Separated by 6,700 kilometres, the Serb and the Argentine gave the same response: “Don’t rush things, lads, there’s still plenty of history to be written here.”
On the couple of occasions he’s crossed paths with Djokovic, Messi will have noticed that he had found a kindred spirit there, someone of his own calibre: boundless passion, a winning ambition and rigorous training. Both enjoy challenging not only their rivals, but above all time itself.
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Djokovic loves football, and once abruptly left a conversation in a café in Monte Carlo when he heard from his then press officer, Benito Pérez Barbadillo, that the traditional match between tennis players and Formula 1 drivers was about to take place at the principality’s stadium.
There is, however, no record of Messi ever taking an interest in tennis, as Diego Maradona did, who even went so far as to face off against great tennis players across the net.
Djokovic, extroverted and often controversial, is far more ‘Maradonian’ than Messi, a man of few words and almost no controversy. The Serb knew Maradona whilst he was still alive and, if you look closely, were he not Serbian he might well have been Argentine: the holder of 24 Grand Slam titles lives and breathes sport with a passion, intensity and agony similar to that of Messi’s homeland.
In just a few days’ time, Djokovic and Messi will have a great deal, a very great deal, at stake. Will the Serb be in the Wimbledon final this Sunday, chasing that elusive 25th Grand Slam title? Will Messi be in the World Cup final a week later, attempting to win his second consecutive World Cup?
Questions that remain unanswered, but questions that can only be asked within the “39 Club”.
