On Thursday, comfortably at home in Spain, Rafael Nadal announced that he was retiring from tennis.
On Friday, halfway across the world in Shanghai, Novak Djokovic looked as if he’d wouldn’t have minded joining him.
Djokovic had just watched his opponent, Jakub Mensik, blast an ace past him on a big point in the first set. When the ball hit the back wall, a frustrated Djokovic shouted repeatedly in Spanish at his coach, Carlos Gómez Herrera. Over the next few games, Gómez Herrera stood and urged Djokovic on, but it wasn’t enough. The Serb couldn’t find a groove, and Mensik won the first set in a tiebreaker.
This is the globe-spanning grind that Nadal, at 38, has finally left behind. It’s the grind that Djokovic, at 37, continues. Along with Rafa, Novak has also seen another of his old rivals, Andy Murray, hang up his racquet this year. It leaves Djokovic as the last of the Big 4 Mohicans, the last of a generation that dominated like none had before.
If you believe in GOATs—which I do—Rafa’s retirement also clinches Djokovic’s status as the greatest male player of the Open era. He’ll hold that title for a while, too. Djokovic has 24 major titles; the active player with the second-most is Carlos Alcaraz, who has four. Even if Alcaraz wins two Slams every year, he wouldn’t catch up to Djokovic until 2034.
For the first time in seven seasons, Djokovic failed to add any majors to his résumé. He was also slowed by a knee injury, and is still wearing a sleeve on it in Shanghai. He hasn’t announced any quitting date of his own, but we can only wait and see if saying good-bye to his colleagues will have any effect on his desire to soldier on.
“We knew that that moment is coming sooner rather than later,” Djokovic said on Friday of Nadal’s announcement. “But it’s still a shock when it came officially.”
“I still enjoy competing, but part of me left with them, big part of me.”
Djokovic is a GOAT who still has goals.
Djokovic has been left alone to do battle with the ATP’s younger generations. Much younger, in some cases. The 19-year-old Mensik is a little more than half Djokovic’s age, and like so many young players these days, he’s bigger, too. Mensik is a powerfully-built 6’4”, and he fired 17 aces in their quarterfinal.
While Mensik is fairly new to the tour, he hasn’t escaped Djokovic’s eye for talent. With his role in the game’s nascent player union, the PTPA, he has kept up with the younger crowd, and he clearly enjoys doing battle with them. He sounded something like a proud father figure after his match with Mensik.
“Jakub is somebody that I have been following for the last three or four years,” Djokovic said. “We like playing each other, we raise the level when we face each other. We’ve played a lot of practice sets and it’s always fun.”
“I haven’t trained with him for a year and a half, so I could see today why he is one of the best servers we have in the game.”
That said, Djokovic sill found a way to beat him. He shrugged off the first set loss, broke right away in the second, and then broke again down the stretch in the third. He closed in style, with a love hold for a 6-7 (4), 6-1, 6-4 win.
With two more wins, Novak Djokovic will collect his 100th career title.
“We went toe-to-toe until the last moment,” Djokovic said. “I was fortunate to find great serves in the last game, a couple of aces, that helps.”
By the end, with Djokovic sailing through the final game, it was easy to forget that we were watching a 37-year-old outlast a 19-year-old.
“We pushed each other a lot, a lot of long rallies…a tough battle, almost two and a half hours.”
Djokovic is a GOAT who still has goals. He could win his 100th ATP title this week, and we know he would love to win his 25th major, to pass Margaret Court and stand alone with the most. In Federer’s and Nadal’s cases, they didn’t stop playing until an injury made it impossible to keep going. Will that be the way it finally ends for Djokovic, too, sometime in the next couple of years?
He can worry about that in the future. For now, he has what he always has: another match to play. Djokovic will face Taylor Fritz in the semifinals on Saturday. The American is “only” 11 years younger than Djokovic, and he’s 0-9 against him.
Fritz will be hungry for a win, but Djokovic will still be Djokovic.
