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Novak Djokovic is heading to Melbourne confident but cautious about landing an eighth Australian Open crown after his flawless ATP Cup campaign for Serbia.
Novak Djokovic is hoping to keep his Next-Gen challengers at bay once more but is wary despite completing the "perfect" preparation for his latest Australian Open title defence.
Djokovic's ninth consecutive hardcourt win over world No.1 Rafael Nadal in Sunday night's ATP Cup final underlined the Serb's hot favouritism to claim a record-extending eighth title at Melbourne Park.
He also downed 2019 US Open runner-up Daniil Medvedev, former Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson, young guns Denis Shapovalov and Christian Garin and world No.10 Gael Monfils during the ATP Cup.
In addition he clinched the decisive doubles rubber with Victor Troicki en route to piloting Serbia to glory in the inaugural $22 million teams' event.
"It is the perfect preparation," Djokovic said.
"I didn't know what to expect from the event.
"Obviously I didn't know how deep we would go and I was hoping we would pass the group stages and see how it goes.
"But these kind of team competitions are really truly special and I'm personally over the cloud with my emotions, and hopefully I can take that positive energy and use it for Australian Open."
The clinical manner in which Djokovic dealt with Nadal in the grand old stagers' 55th career showdown marked the world No.2 as clearly the man to beat at the year's first grand slam.
But the 16-times major winner is taking nothing for granted, especially after being pushed all the way in colossal three-setters against Shapovalov and Medvedev in Sydney.
Despite looking invincible on hard courts against all-comers, Djokovic also pointed to his fourth-round US Open exit as reason to tread carefully.
"I mean, look, last hard court grand slam was in New York, and Rafa won it," he said.
"So I think it's really open, the Australian Open or any other slam.
"I don't think there are really clear favourites.
"You have obviously Federer, Nadal, myself because of the experience and everything and the rankings that we get to be probably named the top three favourites, but then you have Medvedev, (Stefanos) Tsitsipas, Dominic Thiem that are really showing some amazing tennis."
"London Masters was an example where they showed that they matured on the big stage, that they can challenge the best players in the world and win against them.
"So everybody keeps on talking about NextGen player winning a slam. It seems like it's getting closer. Hopefully not this year. We'll see.
"Obviously Australian Open has been my favourite tournament.
"It's the tournament where I played my best tennis, so I can't wait to go back to Rod Laver Arena and hopefully have another great tournament."
The Open draw will take place on Thursday night, with Nadal, Djokovic and Federer - with 14 titles between them - the top three men's seeds for the 10th time and third-straight year.
Medvevev's four ATP Cup wins to Thiem's one helped the Russian leapfrog the Austrian into fourth place in the world rankings, earning him a vital top-four seeding for the Open, meaning he can't face any of the big three until at least the semi-finals.
