Novak Djokovic won the men's athlete of the year prize ©Getty Images

Novak Djokovic and Ivana Spanovic have been named as the male and female athletes of the year by the Serbian Olympic Committee.

Twenty-eight-year-old tennis sensation Djokovic had a dominant year in 2015, which saw him win three out of the four Grand Slam tournaments on offer.

He kicked off the year by beating Britain’s Andy Murray in the final of the Australian Open, with his defence of that title starting this week, and he also beat Swiss rival Roger Federer in the finals of both Wimbledon and the US Open.

The only major title to elude the world number one was the clay court French Open, where he was beaten in the final by another Swiss, Stan Wawrinka.

Ivana Spanovic won the women's award
Ivana Spanovic won the women's award ©Getty Images

Twenty-five-year-old Spanovic, meanwhile, claimed long jump gold at the European Indoor Championships in Prague as well as a bronze at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships in Beijing.

Team prizes were also handed out with the men’s water polo side, which won the World Championships in Kazan, recognised alongside the women’s basketball team which won the 2015 edition of EuroBasket.

Dejan Savic, the water polo team coach, and Tijana Bogdanovic, bronze medallist at the World Taekwondo Championships, were winners in the Best Coach and Young Athlete categories respectively.

Meanwhile, the 2015 International Olympic Committee Sport and Innovation Trophy was awarded to Jovan Simic.

He auctioned off his collection of sports t-shirts to raise money to provide medical treatment for a nine-year-old girl, Nadja Novakovic, and his gesture was copied by several high-level athletes and many others.

This allowed Nadja to have a bone marrow transplant in Germany.