For most of his career, taking the opening set from Novak Djokovic amounted to a warning. Handing him one felt closer to a sentence. That equation has broken in 2026.

Four of the Serbian’s five defeats this season have arrived after he won the first set. Before this year, he had strung together an 82-match winning streak from that position.

In a matter of months, Djokovic has surrendered leads to Carlos Alcaraz in the Australian Open final, to Jack Draper at Indian Wells, to Dino Prizmic in Rome and to teenager Joao Fonseca at Roland Garros, where he was two sets up before the match slipped away.

The Wimbledon semi-final against Jannik Sinner in July did not even offer him a chance to test the pattern. Sinner won 6-4, 6-4, 6-4, taking the opening set before Djokovic could impose one of his own, as the Yahoo Sports live report recorded.

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It was Djokovic’s eighth consecutive Wimbledon semi-final and, in Adam Zagoria’s tally for Forbes, Sinner has nudged their head-to-head to 6-5.

Frontrunner form is deserting him

The 82-match streak matters because it defined how Djokovic won the biggest matches of his era: take the opening set, then squeeze the life from the rest.

That model no longer holds against the top of the men’s tour. Alcaraz, Sinner, Draper and Fonseca have all reeled him back this year after falling behind, and one of them did it in a best-of-five at Roland Garros with a two-set deficit to erase.

The trend arrives at the least helpful moment. Djokovic is on 24 Grand Slam titles and the US Open, a tournament he has won four times, is the surface where a first-set-and-fade problem is most exposed. Best-of-five gives a strong opponent 30 or 40 minutes to solve him. In 2026 they have been solving him.

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Cincinnati as a real test, not a warm-up

Djokovic returns to the Cincinnati Open, staged from 13 to 23 August, for the first time since he lifted the title in 2023. He announced the entry at the end of July.

“I’m happy to announce I’m coming to the Cincinnati Open this year,” Djokovic said, in comments carried by the Sunday Guardian.

“First time since 2023 when I played one of the best best-of-three finals at a Masters 1000 event of my career.”

He is ranked No. 5 in the world and still without a title in 2026. A deep run in Ohio would suggest the closing problem is a bad-days cluster rather than a structural shift.

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Anything less, and the questions travel with him to Flushing Meadows, where the US Open main draw begins on Sunday 30 August.

The 2028 clock

Djokovic has been open about where the runway ends. Last year he said the Los Angeles Games are what keeps him competing at 39.

“The only thing that I have in my head, which gives me motivation, is the Olympics of 2028 in Los Angeles,” he said, in comments reported by Tennis365.

“And playing for the national team and Grand Slams. But not even the Grand Slams, not as much as the Olympics.”

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That framing narrows the runway. Cincinnati and the US Open are among the last hard-court swings before the LA 2028 window closes, and hard court is where his record on paper is strongest. The first-set number is what makes them look different this time.

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