While he could not add to his record Major tally in 2025, former World No. 1 Novak Djokovic remains optimistic about his chances heading into the 2026 season as he looks to maximize his off-season. In Qatar, as part of the Qatar Airways promotional campaign during the Formula 1 race this past weekend, the all-time great was asked about the next steps in his storied career \u2014 and he did not shy away from being ambitious.<\/p>\n
Djokovic stated that this off-season will be focused heavily on physical recovery and returning to full fitness after each of the last two seasons was affected by recurring niggles, the most prominent being a meniscus issue in the second half of 2024.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Sky Sports<\/a>, he explained that he hopes to be in peak condition when the new season begins.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve injured myself more often in the last 18 months, so I\u2019m trying to rebuild my body so that the start of the next season is excellent and, hopefully, I can keep up with the best.\u201d<\/p>\n Although injuries since 2024 have played a role in Djokovic not winning a Major, they are not the primary reason. The Serbian has repeatedly found himself blocked by the \u201cSinCaraz\u201d door<\/a> \u2014 five of his seven Major losses in the last two seasons have come at the hands of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, both in press conferences and interviews, Djokovic admitted that beating the two generational players at this stage of all three of their careers is a tall task, especially at the Majors in best-of-five. After his loss at the US Open at the hands of Alcaraz<\/a>, he said<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cIt will be very difficult for me in the future to overcome the hurdle of Sinner and Alcaraz in the best of five in Grand Slams. I think I have a better chance, best of three, but best of five, it\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n He later reiterated that despite this challenge, he will not stop fighting or competing, dismissing questions and rumors about retirement. And now, with Djokovic motivated to return to top physical condition, and with his ball-striking still among the best on the tour, 2026 might be a final rodeo for another shot at the sport\u2019s biggest titles.<\/p>\n Main Photo Credit: Robert Deutsch – USA TODAY Sports<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While he could not add to his record Major tally in 2025, former World No. 1 Novak Djokovic remains optimistic about his chances heading into the 2026 season as he looks to maximize his off-season. In Qatar, as part of the Qatar Airways promotional campaign during the Formula 1 race this past weekend, the all-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5608,"featured_media":62161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,9],"tags":[259,205,22,6457],"class_list":["post-94132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atp","category-australian-open","category-news","tag-atp-tour","tag-australian-open","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-tennis-news"],"modified_by":"Shane Black","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5608"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94149,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94132\/revisions\/94149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recognition of the Challenge<\/h3>\n