Novak Djokovic celebrates after winning his match
Novak Djokovic has confirmed that he is not in the final phase of his career, but his plan to target just a handful of events in 2025 may be flawed.
At the age of 37, Djokovic has opted to play a dramatically reduced tournament schedule over the last couple of years and his time on court this year has been trimmed back further after a host of surprise defeats.
The most recent of those came at the US Open, where his defence of the title in New York ended with a third round defeat against world No 76 Botic van De Zandschulp.
Now Djokovic is facing a battle to qualify for the end-of-season ATP Finals, where he won his seventh title in the prestigious event last November.
He is currently at No 9 in the ATP Race and needs to get into the top eight to qualify for the lucrative event, but he made it clear that is not his priority after playing for Serbia in the Davis Cup.
“Torino is not my goal at all, to be honest, I am not chasing ATP Finals, I am not chasing the rankings,” he told reporters in Serbia.
“As far as I am concerned, I am done with those tournaments for my career. Whether I will play in other tournaments this year or in the future, I can’t say right now.
“My main priorities are playing for Serbia and Slams, everything else is less important.”
Djokovic is set to play exhibition events in Saudi Arabia and Argentina over the next few weeks and he has also confirmed he will play the ATP 1000 event in Shanghai.
“After that [Shanghai], I am going to see what I am going to do,” Djokovic added.
“Usually in my career I used to have my schedule ready six months in advance, but nowadays that’s not the case, now it’s more spontaneous.
“Firstly, I need to physically, emotionally and mentally rest in order to even start thinking what I want to do next, in what way, how much and where.”
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Djokovic has made it clear that he is struggling to find motivation for events outside of the Grand Slams and the Olympic Games, where he won a gold medal by beating Carlos Alcaraz in the final in Paris.
When he is fit and firing, Djokovic is clearly a threat to anyone in the men’s game and that is a remarkable statement for a player of his age.
Yet if he is only focusing on Grand Slams and playing for Serbia from this point forward, his ATP Ranking will start to slide.
That may not appear to be a big problem for a player who has topped the world rankings for longer than anyone else, but his ranking could be massively important for what he hopes to achieve in 2025.
If Djokovic doesn’t play at the ATP Finals in November, he will lose the 1,300 rankings points he won at that event last year.
Playing a limited schedule next year would also impact his rankings and that could mean he slips down the seedings lists for Grand Slam events.
That could open the prospect of Djokovic playing star names in the early rounds of Grand Slam events and he could also face a run of top tier opponents before he gets to the back end of tournaments.
Rankings may not be a motivation for Djokovic at this stage of his career, but he could pay a heavy price for failing to keep his position in the ATP list when he looks to claim a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam title before he hangs up his rackets for the final time.
