Brad Gilbert picks who he thinks is the greatest tiebreak player in tennis over the last decade, ‘you wouldn’t think it’

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Up until recent years, the final sets at Grand Slams were decided by two clear games, which led to several marathon matches at the All England Club.

One of which was the 11-hour clash between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut in 2010 at Wimbledon, which spanned over three days, with the final set finishing 70-68 in favour of the American.

The rules have since changed, however, after tournament organisers opted for 10-point tiebreaks as fifth-set deciders at majors.

It now means tiebreaks have become more important than ever to players in pursuit of adding a Grand Slam title to their name.

Many stars struggle with the mental battle of set deciders, but others thrive, including one player who former world number four Brad Gilbert thinks excels in them more than anyone on the ATP tour.

Brad Gilbert picks the best tiebreak player of the last ten years

On the Tennis Insider Club podcast, Gilbert said: “You wouldn’t think it because of the way he plays, but over the last 10 years in big matches, the greatest tiebreak player I’ve seen is Novak Djokovic.

“He will simply not miss. He will simply just pull back for a second, and then he can force you to miss because you’re thinking the guy is not going to miss, and maybe they don’t want to rip it.

“If the guy starts playing huge, maybe he will, but he can win by just playing solidly and smart. It’s so a beautiful thing to watch, but it’s a strength that he has that he can come back to.

“I feel like sometimes people get to these business ends of a set and forget what they do well, and they maybe try to overdo something.”

Novak Djokovic’s career record in tiebreaks

Djokovic has played a total of 526 tiebreaks in his career and has won 345 of them, tallying a win percentage of 66%.

Perhaps his most memorable tiebreak victory was in 2019, when he clinched the fifth set decider 7-3 against Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final.

The two had reached 12 games all, at which point the new rule came into effect to prevent the match from going any longer.

So far in 2025, Djokovic has a losing record in tiebreaks, with just seven wins to eight losses, the most recent of which was at the French Open, where he was defeated in the third set by Jannik Sinner in the semi-final.