The 36-year-old responded by beating Hubert Hurkacz in three sets in his final round-robin encounter, before dropping just 11 games across his wins over Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in the knockout stage.
“While Novak Djokovic acknowledges he would be “extremely, extremely satisfied” if he were to abruptly retire from professional tennis, the tennis legend affirms that he currently has no plans to step away from the sport. He emphasizes that there is a substantial inspiration driving his decision to continue playing.”
Of course, the “huge inspiration” he is referring to is records.
The 24-time Grand Slam winner has made it clear that he is gunning for every possible milestone in tennis and a couple of records will be on offer at next week’s ATP Finals as he will look to win a seventh title at the season-ending event.
Should Djokovic be the last man standing in Turin then he will move ahead of Roger Federer on six while he is also on course to reach the 400-week milestone in terms of most weeks at No 1.
The fire to break more records continues to burn strongly for the 36-year-old.
“I also love competing, I love the sport. That’s my greatest motivation really, because I’ve made a lot of records, I’ve broken a lot of records and it’s great,” he told ATP Media.
“But even if I leave professional tennis now and reflect on everything I’ve done, I can be extremely, extremely satisfied. So I don’t have pressure to keep on competing, but I still have the desire and still have the level.
“I’m playing at a very high level, so records are there obviously as a huge inspiration as well, no doubt, and history of the sport. I still want to create my own history and history of tennis and see how far I can go.”
Of the milestones that he can achieve at the ATP Finals in Turin, Djokovic has made it clear that one goal stands ahead of the others.
“For me, the biggest goal right now is to end the season as the No 1 player in the world, so hopefully I can clinch it. I need one win, so hopefully that happens,” he said.
“And then of course, I would love to win the tournament as well. But that’s the goal and then let’s see what happens afterwards.”
Djokovic will have the chance to wrap up the year-end No 1 ranking when he takes on Holger Rune in his opening match on Sunday.
The pair are in the Green Group along with Jannik Sinner and Stefanos Tsitsipas.
