Toni Nadal is, of course, Rafael Nadal's uncle and former coach. He will always emotionally back his kin, and he has often been critical of the Serb. Nadal has given Djokovic his credit in terms of historical greatness, but was never a fan of the Djoker's injuries or odd, in Nadal's view, timeouts.
But his recent comments seem to go out of their way to disparage Djokovic, and aren't completely factually correct. While speaking on the Onda Cero radio network, Nadal claimed that the closest rival to the two best players on the ATP tour currently, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, isn't the 24-time Grand Slam winner, but a player who hasn't yet won a major.
Nadal claimed that Alexander Zverev, seemingly cemented as the ATP No. 3 behind either Alcaraz or Sinner, is by far the bigger threat to the top two, not Djokovic. While the German is 10 years younger than the Serb and plays far more tournaments, when Djokovic plays, he normally does so at a high level.
Toni Nadal makes a mess of a recent comment about Novak Djokovic
Nadal said, "He (Zverev) is a dangerous rival and, for me, he’s clearly better than Djokovic is today. But he lacks the… if he, if Zverev had won that match (the Australian Open semifinal against Alcaraz), he probably would have won the final too."
The thing is that Zverev didn't defeat Alcaraz to reach the final. Nor did the Serb beat Alcaraz to win the Australian Open, but Djokovic did beat Sinner in the semis. Zverev likely would have lost to the Italian had he played him in the semifinals instead of playing against the Spaniard.
The issue is saying that Zverev is "clearly" better than Djokovic. That simply isn't true. Even at 38 years old, Djokovic has made at least the semifinals at every Grand Slam event since the 2025 Australian Open. No one would expect that from any other player of his age, maybe ever.
Zverev didn't even make it past the third round at Wimbledon or the US Open last year, and he lost to Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals at the French Open. While the German is a fantastic player, he doesn't seem to have the mental strength to win a major, and there is no doubt that Djokovic does. That is an underrated aspect Zverev has not yet mastered.
The truth is that neither Zverev nor Djokovic is close to beating either Sinner or Alcaraz in the finals of majors (the Serb doesn't play many other tournaments these days), but saying the German is clearly better than the Serb is wrong. The results disprove Toni Nadal's theory.