By Sandra Harwitt

There’s just something different about a guy when he knows he’s the best of all the rest.

All of the really top players know they’re special performers. But when you have that No. 1 tag it just adds that little extra spice to your mindset.

Djokovic has the right attitude. He has the perfect body type – lean with long limbs adding up to long wingspan.

He has that required ingredient of taking some bad times on the chin, reevaluating the situation and make the necessary corrections. He’s had some disappointing moments — the final loss to Rafael Nadal at last year’s French, for one. But he bounced back mentally to win at Wimbledon and that makes him perfect for the top spot.

He also has that I know what’s best for me attitude and that goes along way. Many questioned his hiring of Boris Becker, especially when he insisted he didn’t want to mimic Becker to become a serve-and-volleyer. Boris stayed. Nole didn’t become a serve-and-volleryer although his serve improved, which was part of the plan.

At last year’s Australian, Djokovic went out in the quarterfinals after three consecutive years as the champion. In total, he’s won the Australian four times and there’s no secret the surface serves his game style well.

Being that the Australian Open is the first major of the year, and the players are coming off the season break, strange things have been known to happen. There’s also the factor that players that have become recent fathers have struggled to win at the majors and his little Stefan arrived in October.

But be assured that next week when the Australian Open gets underway there’s no denying that Novak Djokovic will be the man to beat.