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Playing style

Djokovic is an aggressive baseline player. His groundstrokes from both wings are consistent, deep, and penetrating. His backhand is widely regarded as the greatest two-handed backhand of all time, due to its effectiveness on both sides of the court and its accuracy. His best shot is his backhand down the line, with great pace and precision. He excels at returning serve in particular, and regularly ranks among the tour leaders in return points, return games, and break points won. His forehand is deemed to be underrated, yet one of the best, due to its versatility. After great technical difficulties during the 2009 season (coinciding with his switch to the Head racket series), his serve is one of his major weapons again, winning him many free points; his first serve is typically hit flat, while he prefers to slice and kick his second serves wide. He has also led the ATP Tour in their career "Under Pressure Rating" statistic, in part because of his prowess at winning deciding sets.

Djokovic has been described as one of the fittest and most complete athletes in sports history, with high agility, court coverage and mobility, which allows him to hit winners from seemingly indefensible positions. Because of this, coupled with flexibility and length, he rarely gets aced. Todd Martin, who coached Djokovic between 2009 and 2010, noted that:

His athleticism is from another world. His return of serve is way better than any other return of serve ever and I mean way better. Nobody has gotten so many balls back and neutralized so many good serves.

Djokovic's return of serve is a big weapon for him, with which he can be both offensive and defensive. He is highly efficient off both the forehand and backhand return, often getting the return in play deep with pace, neutralizing the advantage the server usually has in a point. Andre Agassi described Djokovic's return of serve as "the precedent-setting standard for the return". Occasionally, Djokovic employs a well-disguised backhand underspin drop shot and sliced backhand.

Djokovic commented on the modern style of play, including his own, in an interview with Jim Courier after his semifinal win against Andy Murray in the 2012 Australian Open tournament:

I had a big privilege and honour to meet personally today Mr. Laver, and he is one of the biggest, and greatest players ever to play the game, thank you for staying this late, sir, thank you... even though it would actually be better if we played a couple times serve and volley, but we don't know to play... we are mostly around here, we are running, you know, around the baseline...

In assessing Djokovic's 2011 season, Jimmy Connors said that Djokovic gives his opponents problems by playing "a little bit old-school, taking the ball earlier, catching the ball on the rise, (and) driving the ball flat". Connors adds that a lot of the topspin that Djokovic's opponents drive at him comes right into his zone, thus his ability to turn defense into offense well.