Australian tennis legend Mark Woodforde has lifted the lid on a time that a teenage Novak Djokovic tried to sneak into the Adelaide International, with the Serbian star insisting that he will someday be world number one.

Woodforde, a former 17-time Grand Slam champion, was doing commentary for the event on Monday when he recalled the time Djokovic walked into his office before qualifying had began and asked for a wildcard entry.

At the time, Woodforde had recently retired from tennis and had become the co-tournament director of the Adelaide International alongside Peter Johnston. 

'He [Djokovich] introduced himself to both Peter Johnston and myself and said, 'I'm happy to be here in Adelaide and I was hoping that you might give me a wildcard',' said Woodforde.

'Peter and I just looked at each other, we'd already given out our wildcards in the main draw. Novak said, 'Because I'm going to become No.1 in the world one day and I think this would help give me a start', and we just smiled and said, 'Unfortunately, we don't have space'.

'Dejan, who I've known for a number of years just said, 'He really does believe he's going to be No.1' and we just had to apologise and say we had to reserve some of the wildcards at the time for the Australians.

'I said, 'We'll try to get you into the qualifying at least', and he said, 'But I want to be in the main draw because I'm going to be No.1 in the world'.

'Unfortunately, we couldn't even get him into qualifying that year, but that's the belief that Novak Djokovic had at a very early age, that he was going to achieve great things.'

Djokovic meant what he said and arrived back in Adelaide in 2007 at age 19, where he took out the title: beating big-serving Aussie Chris Guccione. 

The Serb is now a 91-time singles champion as a professional, and the following year went on to win the first of his nine Australian Open Singles titles.

He had hoped to reach double figures in 2022, but was deported from Australia over his vaccination status and was subsequently hit with a three-year ban from the country - which has since been overturned.

Djokovic kicks off his Adelaide Open singles campaign on Tuesday, and is looking forward to tasting more success.

'The good memories and good history that I have on Australian soil gives me a lot of positive emotions and belief that I can do it again, that I can go far,' he told media.

'It's a country where I've had tremendous success in my career, particularly in Melbourne, by far my most successful Grand Slam, won it nine times.'

'As I said, it's a great place. People in Adelaide and generally in Australia love tennis, love sports. It's a sporting nation. Hopefully we're going to have a lot of people watching and we can have some good time.'