Tennis’s who’s-the-greatest debate is over: It’s the 36-year-old and everyone else. As he looks to pad his record majors haul this year, the question is how an unconventional kid from Serbia made himself one of the planet’s best athletes.
In any outdoor market running through an urban downtown, there is inevitably a T-shirt vendor. And at the entrance to Kalemegdan Park, at the base of a pedestrian promenade in Belgrade, the T-shirt guy offers two main choices. One is a shirt adorned with an image of Novak Djokovic, face contorted in intensity, as he is, no doubt, about to win one tennis title or another. The other option features Nikola … no, not Jokić, but Tesla, the Serbian American inventor and engineer, best known for pioneering alternating current in the late 1800s. Such is the status conferred on Djokovic in his homeland.
Djokovic’s level of esteem is not much different in the tennis sector. Except that here, he stands alone. He isn’t just a generational figure; he’s a transformational one, who, not unlike Tesla—also, by the way, tall, lanky and sometimes overshadowed by a rival—is a technician and a futurist, constantly pushing the parameters of possibility.
Fresh off a year in which he, yet again, won three of the four tennis majors, Djokovic began 2024 by winning five matches at the Australian Open, an event he has won 10 times before. Though he was uncharacteristically flat in a semifinal defeat to 22-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner, Djokovic remains—a few months from turning thirty-frickin’-seven years old—the world’s No. 1 ranked player.
Djokovic will head to the French Open in May as the defending champ, hoping to add a 25th major to his plunder, most in tennis history, male or female, modern or dead ball. It’s one of those sports stats that gets regurgitated without context, so let’s pause to consider that titans like John McEnroe won seven majors and Jimmy Connors won eight. The Djokovic haul of 24 is more than Andre Agassi (eight) and Pete Sampras (14) combined.
Shall we keep going? Djokovic has won 74 other tournaments that are not majors. He has won more prize money (more than $180 million) than any other player in history. He has spent more time ranked No. 1 than any player, 410 weeks and counting as of Feb. 1. He has also claimed perhaps the most prestigious title in the sport’s history, albeit one for which there is no trophy or winner’s check.
For a full decade, The Republic of Tennis was obsessed with a parlor game, “Who is the GOAT?” a three-way derby among Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal. Three years ago, they were, fittingly, tied with 20 majors apiece. Now? Federer retired with 20. Nadal has 22, but a few months from turning 38, his body has entered full rebellion mode and he is unlikely to add to his collection.
And then there is Novak Djokovic, who powers on, with no obvious signs of decline. As the country music lyric goes, he has dutifully kept the old man out.
So many top-tier athletes are sheepish about their greatness and longevity. They’ll let others anatomize their excellence, while they either offer platitudes or escape the locker room out the back door. Trying to get, say, the aforementioned Nikola Jokić to talk about himself is like getting Bill Belichick to discuss his favorite stuffed animals.
Djokovic, though, does nothing conventionally, forever zigging where other athletes/celebrities/humans zag. (Digression for one example among countless: The guy doesn’t exactly roll deep, as this interview was brokered in part by his manager, Carlos Gomez-Herrera … who is also his hitting partner.) And, as someone naturally and ferociously curious—“a true seeker,” Agassi calls Djokovic—he is happy to ponder the mystery of his peerlessness.
He is as interested and amused in his singularity as the rest of us are. Much the same way he will happily take a visitor around Belgrade, pointing out spots of interest, he is remarkably open to offering an annotated tour of his mind and body. How did he get so damn good, able, as he is, to make a credible case for being the best athlete on the planet? We’ll let him guide us.
