It has been the strangest year on tour so far for tennis’s most successful player ever, as entering the French Open, Novak Djokovic has played just three tournaments, and more incredibly, only one match on clay, which is also his lone match on tour in the last two months.
Now 39, Djokovic has, over the years, with his growing success and status in the history of the sport, trimmed down the number of events he takes part in, in a bid to both keep himself fresh for the biggest tournaments and perhaps give fans the sense that they should not take what he is doing for granted.
Chasing Greatness Never Brought Novak Djokovic Acceptance
But being taken for granted has been a theme of the Serbian’s career.
His ascension, which was still great for any young player at the time, unfortunately for him, coincided with one of the all-time great sporting artists at the height of his powers in Roger Federer, and a peer in Rafael Nadal who very well may have been the greatest young men’s player tennis had seen.
So while Djokovic was respected, he failed to get the recognition or love that someone with that game and charisma should have deserved.
And Djokovic chased that.
He went from challenger to numero uno, and then stayed there for a long time. And when some thought it was the end after a couple of down seasons, he rose again. And he won again, at a rate at which he had not even won at his physical peak. He kept chasing the ghosts of Basel and Mallorca until he ended up passing them both in statistical accolades.
But the love, the admiration, never came. And the cruelty of it all for Djokovic was that as soon as Federer and Nadal retired, it was not he who was bumped up in fans’ eyes. Rather, the two were replaced by newer, shinier toys in Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. So the number three stayed a number three despite having the resume and accomplishments of a number ine,Why the French Open Feels Different This Time
Now we come to Paris, for what will be Djokovic’s 22nd main draw appearance on the Parisian clay. He has won the title three times and reached an additional four finals. He has played no tournament more than he has played here, but this time he enters the gates of Roland Garros with a big difference.
For the last fifteen years, he has always played for history, and that hasn’t changed. And yes, while now he has the luxury of choosing whoever he wants to be part of his team, whether it be Andy Murray last year or his longtime friend and Davis Cup teammate Viktor Troicki this year, that still is not the key difference, as for probably the first time in his career, he enters the French Open power-ranked number one for crowd support.
Yes, Alcaraz having to miss the tournament due to injury might have played a hand in this. Yes, Sinner’s continuous dominance on the court while giving little, if anything, off it, in what has consistently been described as robotic, with results in recent months making him feel more Terminator than human, makes Djokovic look almost human. And when the one-time undisputed best player in the world shows cracks in his armour, he becomes mortal.
He becomes loved.
Djokovic Finally Has What He Wanted
Djokovic has consistently had to fight off hecklers and crowds against him, so much so that he started to visualise them cheering his name instead of his opponents’. And yes, sometimes he himself did not help with this matter, picking fights with crowds that perhaps were not there to begin with, to keep his edge or create a motivating factor.
But now, over two decades deep into his career, on the site where he broke the all-time men’s Slam record in 2023, and where he had arguably his most emotional victory in the summer of 2024, he finds himself cheered for and loved as he takes on the daunting task of standing alone in all of tennis with 25 Major titles.
Will he do it?
He is not the favourite to do so. Heck, he has not even won a match on clay this year. But in the city of love, Djokovic, with a crowd behind him and potentially a path that requires him to face only one of the two younger all-time greats currently on tour, will have as good a chance as any 39-year-old to do so.
Main photo credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
