Novak Djokovic is 39 and already holds the men’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles. The target that keeps him on tour is not the next major. It is the next Olympics.
“I wish to retire at the 2028 Olympic Games with the Serbian flag in my hands,” he told Esquire Australia earlier this year.
He added the usual caveat of a player in the final stretch of a long career, telling the magazine he could not promise his body would cooperate: “Will I make it to that point? I don’t know, I mean, I really don’t know, because there are some things that are not entirely in my control.”
24 Grand Slams and still not “completed” tennis
The curious part is the framing. Djokovic has more men’s majors than anyone, an Olympic gold from Paris 2024, and every ATP record worth chasing. Asked by Esquire whether he feels he has already done it all, he pushed back.
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“But I don’t feel like I’ve ‘completed’ tennis,” he said.
That sense of unfinished business is what he has described, in various press conferences through 2026, as his primary motivation. His version of the explanation is simple: love of competition, a body that still moves well enough to keep up, and the appeal of testing himself against a younger wave led by Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.
A 2026 season that pushed the question
The timing of the “completed tennis” interview was no accident. Djokovic walked into 2026 after a season without a major and spent the year losing ground. He reached the Australian Open final in February, where Alcaraz beat him in four sets to complete his career Grand Slam. It was the closest Djokovic came to a 25th major all year, and he ended 2026 with no Slam to show for it.
The late run of the season was harder still. His only trophy came at the China Open, his 102nd career title. At the Paris Masters on 5 November, he lost in three sets to qualifier Rinky Hijikata, ranked 83 in the world.
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That defeat sealed it. Djokovic will not play the 2026 ATP Finals in Turin, the first time he has been absent from the year-end championship since 2017, when an elbow injury kept him out.
Family as the other anchor
Beyond the tennis record, the player who used to talk about being the greatest of all time now talks about perspective. Djokovic told Esquire that tennis is no longer everything, and that giving it a smaller share of his life has, in a strange way, made him stronger on court.
The two young children in his box at every major appearance figure in that recalibration. He has said repeatedly through 2026 that he wants them to see him compete rather than remember him only from highlight reels.
What is still on the schedule
The 2027 Australian Open in January is the next major on his calendar. It is the tournament where he has won 10 titles, more than at any other venue, and where he again reached the final in 2026.
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If he does make it to Los Angeles in the summer of 2028, he will be 41.
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