For the second time in four Majors–this year’s Australian Open and last year’s French Open–Novak Djokovic has achieved an absolutely extraordinary victory, defying both serious injury and serious odds against him, only to have to retire from the tournament almost immediately afterwards. Indeed, given that he also somehow overcame serious injury to reach last year’s Wimbledon final but then lost in straight sets to Carlos Alcaraz, it is arguable that in three of the last four Majors he has achieved an astonishing feat that ultimately only led to a painful withdrawal or a chastening defeat. It now seems that the GOAT of men’s tennis, while remaining capable of winning spectacular battles, is losing the Major wars.
Novak’s Recent History at The Majors
It was at last year’s French Open that Djokovic began his recent trend of achieving incredible victories that he could not subsequently build upon. During his fourth-round match against Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo, he badly injured his right knee, tearing some cartilage, and yet he still somehow won in five sets. However, he then had to withdraw from his quarterfinal against Casper Ruud and had to undergo emergency knee surgery, just a few weeks before Wimbledon.
As has so often been the case throughout his career, Djokovic somehow recovered rapidly from serious injury and subsequent surgery. Indeed, he not only made it to Wimbledon but made it all the way to the final. However, unlike on so many occasions earlier in his career, most notably at the 2021 Australian Open when he suffered a serious side tear in his third-round match and still went on to win the tournament, he was unable to complete the comeback. In the 2024 Wimbledon final, he lost easily, indeed rather meekly, to Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets, in what was undoubtedly one of his worst ever Grand Slam final defeats.
And in Melbourne over the last week, Djokovic completed a completely unwelcome hat-trick. Once again, he somehow managed to beat Carlos Alcaraz, who is nearly 16 years his junior, in a fabulous quarterfinal match, despite suffering yet another muscle tear, but then he had to withdraw from his semifinal against Alexander Zverev after just one set.
Is Djokovic Becoming The King of Pyrrhic Victories?
It is true that Djokovic won the Olympic Singles Gold Medal last summer, when he also defeated Alcaraz in the final, but that was obviously just over three sets. In the Majors, the last realm of tennis where men still play five-set matches, it increasingly appears to be the case that he is only capable of pyrrhic victories, i.e. spectacular victories but victories achieved at enormous cost.
The term pyrrhic victory derives from Pyrrhus, the 4th-century BCE Greek leader (he was both a king and a general) who was initially regarded as one of the greatest military tacticians who had ever lived, especially as he was one of the earliest opponents of Roman imperialism. However, in some of the battles that he won, the casualties on his own side were so high that the term “pyrrhic victory” was eventually coined to describe a victory that was achieved at terrible cost.
It now appears that Djokovic is becoming the new king of pyrrhic victories. Such is his remarkable talent that he can still overcome seemingly any one opponent, even if he is playing with injury, but then he is ultimately unable to build on that spectacular victory in his next match, if he is able to play it at all.
Is Djokovic Following The Final Path of Federer and Nadal?
Djokovic, of course, is the last surviving member of The Big Three and it is fascinating that his current predicament is so strikingly similar to that of his two greatest rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. At the end of their careers, Federer and Nadal similarly achieved almost unbelievable victories in Majors that eventually proved to be illusory.
In his last significant Grand Slam run, Federer reached the semifinal of the 2020 Australian Open against Djokovic and even took the first set to a tie-break before losing in straight sets. Similarly, in 2022 Nadal somehow defeated Taylor Fritz in an epic five-set Wimbledon quarterfinal, but then had to withdraw from the semifinal against Nick Kyrgios because of a tear in his abdominal muscle.
It seems that, like Federer and Nadal before him at the end of their careers, Djokovic is still so talented and so extraordinarily competitive that even when he is struggling with injury, he remains capable of victories or even just appearances at a tournament that would be beyond “normal” tennis players. However, just like Federer and Nadal, for all his apparent divinity on a tennis court, he is ultimately proving to be mortal and therefore as susceptible as any mortal to the ravages of time and injury.
What Next For Djokovic?
In the immediate aftermath of his retirement in Melbourne, Djokovic naturally cut a despondent figure. Although he expressed hope that he would return to the Grand Slam city where he has been most successful, he qualified that hope by saying that it would be dependent on his fitness, health and motivation, which are obviously the three biggest determinants of any athlete’s success.
It is now almost certain that Djokovic is past his peak as a player, but it is precisely because his peak was so great–statistically greater than any other male tennis player ever–that he can potentially win Majors on the downslope of his career. He proved again in Melbourne, as he did in the Olympic final last year, that he is capable not only of competing with Carlos Alcaraz but capable of defeating him.
However, his increasing injury problems and apparent reluctance to submit to the year-round grind of the ATP Tour almost certainly means that he will go into any future Major with a much lower ranking than he has ever had before. In turn, that means he will face his new biggest rivals–Alcaraz, Sinner and to a lesser extent Zverev–much earlier in a Slam than ever before. And he will probably have to play more of them to try and win the tournament.
In the wake of his incredible victory over Alcaraz in the Australian Open quarterfinal, Djokovic expressed regret that it had not been a final that he had won. That was an acknowledgement of the excellence of the encounter. However, it may also have been a tacit or unconscious admission that he can no longer produce the sustained excellence required to beat a succession of top players in the quarterfinal, semifinal and final of a Major, as he used to do so regularly. Like Federer and Nadal before him, for all his great victories in the past it may now be only injury and Grand Slam failure that lies ahead.