The 20-time Grand Slam winner, to whom tournament organizers gifted a cake to celebrate the occasion, achieved his first Tour-level victory in 2004 and has since become one of the greatest tennis players of all time .
“Thank you to the tournament and to the public for celebrating the finish with me,” Djokovic said in his on-pitch interview with ATP. “Obviously I was seeing Roger and Rafa celebrate those milestones over the past two years and I couldn’t wait to get to those 1,000 myself.
“I am really, really lucky and privileged to have so many victories on the Tour. It has been a long time since I played my first and I won my first game of the Tour and I hope I can move on and there are many more victories to come. . “
Djokovic, who is looking for his first title of the season, will be looking to clinch 1,001 wins on Sunday as he faces the Greek world number 1. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final of the Italian Open.