Ask the quokkas – Djokovic is king but Nadal raging sentimental favourite before he ‘probably’ quits

Djokovic, Nadal Swiatek, Osaka, Wozniacki, Kerber, decent Australians in de Minaur and Tomljanovic – there’s big guns and new mums for the Australian summer of tennis.

Novak Djokovic takes a selfie with quokka on Rottnest Island ahead of the 2024 United Cup tennis tournament in Perth. Picture: Matt Jelonek/Tennis Australia/AFP

Novak Djokovic is starting his summer of tennis in Perth.

The tradition is for the world’s best players to venture to Rottnest Island for a selfie with a quokka.

Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have previously taken comically gleeful happy snaps but this year’s quokkas didn’t seem too keen on Djokovic.

They kept their distance while one of them allegedly sniffed, “More of a Rafa man, myself.”

Good old Djoker, eh?

His ability to polarise opinion extends to the quokka colonies. He can’t even whack on a bucket hat and take photos with a native Australian animal without social media screaming at him that Rafa and Roger did it better.

Rafael Nadal posted a selfie with a quokka in 2020. Picture: Instagram

Roger Federer with a quokka on Rottnest Island in 2017. Picture: Instagram

No matter. The Serb has all he needs. He’s the 10-time Australian Open champion. The king of Melbourne Park and indisputably one of the greatest athletes of all time. We’re blessed to have the bloke in our backyard for the better part of the next month. A giant of world sport is among us.

Djokovic is one of hundreds of this year’s Australian Open ­wannabes, might-bes and never-will-bes.

It’s a wild old tournament. It’s stinking hot and then it’s bucketing down.

There’s boring matches and ripsnorters. It’s rough-around-the-edges and a thing of sporting beauty. An evening session comes and goes so quickly that everyone says, “What a joke! Another night session goes so late we’re walking home with the nightclub ravers”.

At an event of this size, starting on January 14, not everything in the plan can go to plan. Best ­advice? Cop it sweet. No joke.

For now, players are spread across Australia like sunscreen. Djokovic is in Perth for the United Cup, alongside the women’s world No.1 Iga Swiatek and the Australia duo of Alex de Minaur and Ajla Tomljanovic.

Nadal, the injury crock, and Naomi Osaka, the new mum and mental-health advocate, are launching much-hyped career comebacks at the Brisbane International.

These are big-time global athletes. Young sensations Carlos ­Alcaraz and Coco Gauff are walking, talking headlines. Caroline Wozniacki and Angelique Kerber are a couple of past Open champs who join Osaka as new mums who will put bums on seats.

Osaka plays on Monday in Brisbane. Nadal’s return is yet to be scheduled.

It’ll be the Spanish great’s first match since a hip injury had him hobbling like an old codger at last year’s Australian Open.

Spain's Rafael Nadal speaks at the Brisbane International on Sunday. He didn’t say he was retiring. Picture: William West/AFP

There shall be no greater sentimental favourite than Nadal this year. On his list of things to do for 2024 is … retire. Probably. Nadal is a stickler for the truth. Before answering questions he invariably asks himself, “What is the true?”

This is the “true” about his ­career plans. “The problem about saying that it’s going to be my last season is I can’t predict what’s going on 100 per cent,” he says.

“That’s why I say ‘probably’. It’s a high percentage it’s going to be my last time playing in Australia but if I am here next year, don’t tell me, ‘You said it was going to be your last season’. Because I didn’t say it.”