On a bright, sunny morning illuminating the Bay of Kotor in Montenegro, Novak Djokovic is wearing a white Lacoste T-shirt, blue shorts, rubber sandals and cobalt-lensed Moscot glasses. At 37, he is probably living the most carefree period of his career. He has nothing to gain and nothing to lose. He knows how to convey a truly unique, even slightly unsettling sense of security: he serenely accepts the inevitable end of his sporting career, but still has at least another season of Slams left in the tank. He approaches our table with a canvas and leather Wimbledon bag, in shades of violet and green. “I love it,” he says. “They know how to do their job well.” Djokovic spends three minutes, which seem like thirty, questioning a waiter about the specific ingredients of each dish on the breakfast menu. It is a scene I have witnessed before, in another context before the US Open in New York, and I think his meticulousness is not at all ostentatious. “When it comes to food,” he explains, “I’m pretty strict. I care that things are fresh and prepared with care. I’m not really into… what do you say? Experience. Especially during a tournament.” (When he’s not competing, he says, ice cream is his vice. Ice cream and wine.)
Although he still legally resides in Monaco and has homes around the world, in recent years he has spent much more time both in his home country of Serbia and here in Montenegro, which was once a single nation with Serbia and where he used to go on holiday as a child with his family. Today it seems to be exceptionally quiet. However, a deadly danger lurks. Nearby, a small bird fell unconscious to the ground. Djokovic noticed this as he walked towards me. The perfectly clear sky, appreciated by most human beings, can be fatal for birds, because on a glass wall it creates an illusion of transparency. Someone comments saying that they drop like flies. It is disturbing. Djokovic and his two sons are on the case. They put the little animal in a box and take it inside to give it some sugar water, rest and the necessary care to regain its strength.
Djokovic is also on the mend. Despite a nagging knee injury and his first season since 2005 without an ATP title, he loudly claims that he feels ready and, like the bird, that he is far from finished. Quite the opposite, in fact: always with his back straight and his collar up, he seems even fitter than usual when I watch him closely, still beaming from the gold medal won at the Paris Olympics . Olympic gold, on his fifth attempt in his sixteen-year career, was to all intents and purposes the only goal he had never achieved. He won ten Australian Opens, three Roland Garros, seven Wimbledons and four US Opens, for a total of twenty-four career Slam titles: a record that makes him the most successful man in tennis. Olympic gold, though secondary in terms of prestige to the Slams, meant something more to Djokovic than to most other tennis players: a unique victory, acclaimed and full of meaning, given the weight of national expectations of his country of origin. Winning for him alone was a wish fulfilled in spades; winning for Serbia was not.
I then asked him if he felt like he had won the tennis match. Did you make it through the last level and the final boss? He laughs because he fully understands what I mean, but then thinks seriously. “Yes and no,” he replies. He describes everything he still hopes to accomplish as a veteran of the sport, from improving player rights and protection to his business plans (“Tennis is still my biggest megaphone to the world”), then admits, “Yeah, I mean, if you just look at it from the perspective of completing objectives and improving my game… Then yes, I think…” Then he laughs again, more than before.
In the wake of that latest on-court milestone, he says, he sensed that people were trying to write his tennis obituary. The media. The fans. “And I don’t know if he’ll be happy for me to say it,” Djokovic adds. “But I’m going to say it anyway. It all starts with my father. He’s been trying to retire me for a while now.” I smile. “No, really! But without being pushy. He respects my decision to continue. And of course he understands why I don’t want to stop, but it’s like, ‘What else do you want to prove?’”
“He knows the amount and intensity of pressure and tension in the environment. Not to mention the stress that affects my health, my body and, consequently, everyone around me, including him. That’s why he advised me: ‘My son, start thinking about a way to end this story.'”
Djokovic describes the battle that erupts inside him when he has to leave his family to play a certain tournament. It’s hard to load the car. The first two nights in a hotel are tough. “In the first 48 hours,” he confides, “I feel the maximum intensity of a series of emotions: sadness, a sense of separation, regret and the incredible need to be back with my children and my wife.” An intensity that then fades because they immerse themselves in their own lives and forget about him, he jokes. He makes sure to be present at all the important occasions, he adds, except for the birthday of his poor daughter, who had the misfortune of being born during the second week of the US Open. At one point in Montenegro, his 10-year-old son Stefan approaches us wearing a Celtics jersey. He tells us, in Serbian and English, that the bird is alive. Stefan, however, was injured while protecting it from a cat that had attacked him in the bushes. “Oh, Stefan, Stefan, Stefan,” Djokovic says, hugging it.
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“And yet,” he continues, wondering again how much time he has left to play, “I keep thinking about how and when I want to finish. No, I take it all back. I think more about how than when. I don’t think about when that much yet. How… how would I like to finish? I guess if I start losing too many times, feeling a bigger gap with my opponents and having more difficulty overcoming the real obstacles in the Slams, then I’d probably call it quits. But right now, I’m fine and I’m just
Of course, he says, as much as the sport and fans may not like that, “moving forward means reducing the amount of tournaments I play and focusing on just a few select ones.” Let’s start by drawing up a theoretical calendar for 2025. “I don’t think I’ll play just four Slams and the Davis Cup. I plan to play at least one or two warm-up tournaments before the Slams. Especially on clay.” But what about the intricate global network of ATP Masters 1000, ATP 500, ATP 250 and the restrictive requirements that top players must play X number of them? All of that is irrelevant to Novak Djokovic this season, in the final phase of his career. He will suffer the point penalties that top players receive for missing ATP 1000 events. As a result, he will happily plummet in the ATP rankings . (One immediately feels sorry for the emerging star forced to face a ridiculously low-ranked Djokovic in the opening rounds of a Slam, thanks to the arcane rankings system.)
However, I argue that in the cinematic version of Djokovic’s story, the script should stop at the moment of the gold medal. A man celebrating in the Olympic Village with a team of compatriots, a national hero. So why continue?
“I’ve had a lot of people tell me publicly and privately that they think it’s best to quit when you’re at your best, and I get it, don’t get me wrong, I get it,” he says. “But if I’m still physically capable of competing and I feel like I can beat the best players in the world at Grand Slams, why would I quit now?”
