If the fourteen times Gram Slam champion Novak “Nole” Djokovic were a car, he’d be a Built For The Future But Here Today Tesla: the quickest to 60 mph from a standing start, capable of routinely outperforming all of its closest fossil fuel pumping rivals on a single charge of clean energy, able to access a global network of military-grade GPS satellites, with a wireless face-scanning system that can detect a flicker of psychological weakness in an opponent during the coin toss or even within the safety of their hotel room. To cut a long first paragraph short with a definitive no-holds-barred statement: over the course of the next four years, Novak Djokovic will inevitably pass Roger Federer’s record haul of fourteen grand slam titles and be widely acknowledged as the greatest player to ever twirl a tennis racquet player within his greedy, trophy hunting hands.

Some 146 words back, when I began to praise Serbia’s number one poster boy for post-conflict rehabilitation and fast-track European reintegration - the Tesla analogy fell apart. Now that I’m well into my second paragraph, I’ve realised that the Tesla comparison is actually unflattering – to Djokovic. During the previous twelve months, Djokovic won all four major grand slams, a feat beyond the likes of historically standout players like Borg, McEnroe, Lendl, Sampras, Federer and Nadal. If Novak Djokovic chose to peel back the skin over his face and reveal a shiny, robotic endoskeleton to the world, would we be that surprised? I think after Novak outed himself as an early prototype of Skynet (the mass genocidal nemesis of James Cameron’s groundbreaking "Terminator" series), we’d all say, “Yup, everything makes sense now.”

Until last night, a few hours back, when I watched Stan Wawrinka catch the Terminator bug and drive a big old locomotive right over the reputedly invincible Djoko-300. Stan didn’t hesitate as he revved up his engine, ploughed into the Djoko-300 and took him apart limb by still shiny limb.  Stan wasn’t even breathing hard when he leapt down from the driver’s cabin and tore the Djoko-300’s backup power source from its exposed spine. The look of cold contempt on Stan’s face when he left the Djoko-300’s exposed metal skeleton lying on the ground for bored truanting children to kick around as they pleased was something to behold.

The result? Novak Djokovic’s quest to become the ultimate tennis winner in a world-class, ferociously competitive sport just became a lot tougher. Thanks to Stan’s patented, eye-watering brutal jailhouse assault, every baby-faced ball boy and girl in the world now knows that Djokovic is eminently beatable. Every time the likes of Andy Murray and Juan Del Potro step onto the court and face Djokovic in a final, they’ll say to themselves, “Come on, if Stan can beat this guy, so can I.” This belief will surely become the basis of every painful marquee defeat Novak Djokovic suffers during the remainder of his career and inevitably reduce the number of grand slams this undeniably great champion will eventually win.