Why did a clothing brand drop Djokovic for winning too much?

Four tennis players, current and former, talked about a past incident where a brand decided to drop Serbia’s Novak Djokovic for winning too much. The 37-year-old is regarded as the greatest player in the history of men’s tennis in the singles category, having won as many as 24 Grand Slam titles.

Recently, a CNBC report surfaced claiming that the clothing brand Sergio Tacchini had signed with Djokovic on a 10-year deal. The deal was such that while they offered not a handsome amount up front, they offered the former world number one a bigger bonus for winning tournaments, especially the Grand Slams. Djokovic started winning regularly from then on, which created trouble for the brand, which decided to part ways with the legendary tennis star.

In the recent episode of the Nothing Major podcast, which was hosted by American Sam Querrey and also featured John Isner, Steve Johnson and Jack Sock, the four talked about that incident in 2011 in a lighter view.

"Remember that back in the day when Novak was with Sergio Tacchini, Novak was with them for 4 or 5 years and the rumor was that he was essentially just putting them out of business because he kept winning every Major,” asked Querry. In response to that, Sock answered with a one-liner. "He made them bankrupt, didn’t he?,” he said.

Querry then further went on to say that: "Yeah and every Masters series, he’s just triggering bonus after bonus after bonus and they’re not Nike and they were just, 'oops Novak’s so much', they couldn't continue and they dropped him or they went under, or what happened but it ended."

Isner then explained how good Djokovic was during that season. "It was his legendary 2012 year, remember he started like 42-0. I mean it was absurd, he was undefeated through Rome and he was wearing Tacchini. They’re like lose,” he said. Querry once again jumped in with an interesting response to wind up the conversation by stating: "We’ve got €5000 left in the Sergio Tacchini bank account. We can’t give you any more."