Novak Djokovic needs new tennis quests. Can the US Open provide them?

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NEW YORK — What motivates Novak Djokovic now that he has nothing left to fight for?

The 24-time Grand Slam champion finally won his coveted Olympic gold medal in Paris this month, effectively completing tennis by capturing the one coveted title in the sport that had eluded him. Djokovic has other goals, such as a 25th Grand Slam title that would take him past Australia’s Margaret Court, but the Olympic gold was the true white whale for a player who has made a living from collecting trophies.

Not so recently. He arrived in New York without his name on any of the three majors for the first time in 14 years.

The most interesting thing is that he has been here before.

In 2016, Djokovic finally won the French Open in Paris, completing the career Grand Slam and becoming the second male player in the Open Era, after Rod Laver, to hold all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously.

Novak Djokovic’s title at Roland Garros in 2016 gave him an edge over his contemporaries. (Philippe Lopez/AFP via Getty Images)

It felt like he was going to dominate the tennis world forever. Instead, he was defeated by Sam Querrey at Wimbledon and then went two years without winning a major, during which he underwent elbow surgery and endured a series of highly unusual upsets, the mother of all comedowns.

“I wasn’t in the right frame of mind mentally,” he said later.

In 2024, the first signs are that he is working to avoid a repeat. Asked about his motivation ahead of the tournament, Djokovic spoke about his rivalry with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, his advocacy work with the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) and his belief in his competitiveness.

There’s little to learn from a 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 first-round cruise against the outmatched Radu Albot, but Djokovic — and the rest of the tennis world — can learn more from what awaits him on Wednesday. He faces compatriot Laslo Djere in a repeat of their 2023 fourth-round meeting. Djokovic trailed two sets at love but eventually pulled through in five sets en route to the title.

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Djokovic finds himself in a strange position. He’s coming off what he calls the “greatest achievement” of his career, but his season as a whole has been more of a low point than a high point. Despite beating Alcaraz to win that Olympic gold, Djokovic has lost to the Spaniard in consecutive Wimbledon finals. Sinner overwhelmed him at the Australian Open, an event where he had previously seemed invincible. The rivalry that drives him has, so far, not gone to plan.

Novak Djokovic has struggled since he started playing on clay. (Filippo Monteforte / AFP via Getty Images)

This could help Djokovic. He finally has two younger rivals who are on his level, and he will be desperate to reassert himself at the top of the game by beating them as he has done to so many players over the past decade. He may be the US Open champion, but here in New York it is the reigning French Open and Wimbledon champion Alcaraz who has the biggest target on his back. It is Sinner, not Djokovic, who is the world number 1.

Djokovic is no longer interested in proving a point and silencing those who have written him off. This is not like June 2016, when it seemed almost too easy for Djokovic to dominate tennis, as he turned the “Big Four” into the “Big One.”

Just over eight years ago, there was no sign of Djokovic’s motivation waning. In retrospect, it may seem obvious that reaching the Holy Grail of tennis would cause a dip, but at the time, that was not the prediction.

Looking back at his pre-Wimbledon press conferences, Djokovic wasn’t asked if he would struggle with new goals. It wasn’t until he suffered the seismic shock of a defeat to American Sam Querrey that the subject came up.

Novak Djokovic’s defeat by American Sam Querrey at Wimbledon is one of the biggest shocks in recent tournament history. (Adrian Dennis / AFP via Getty Images)

“It’s an amazing feeling to be able to do four Grand Slams at the same time,” Djokovic said that summer. “Going into Wimbledon, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy mentally to motivate myself again.”

Djokovic later admitted that he was going through an existential crisis during that period.

“I was in a period where I was really searching for myself off the court,” he later reflected. There were a couple of rain delays during the loss to Querrey, and Djokovic recalls asking his team to leave him alone in a room during one of the stoppages.

“I just looked at the wall and I was numb. Literally, no drive in me,” he said.

In a 2018 interview, he added that the injuries he suffered in the middle of the previous year had occurred when he “experienced an emotional imbalance”. He had split with Boris Becker in late 2016 and had broken up his team during the 2017 clay-court season in an attempt to regain his drive to win matches. Djokovic even considered retirement, as his motivation had completely disappeared.

He has since been able to reframe this difficult period as a valuable learning experience. He even said he was “super happy” to have gone through it. If there was ever a time when that experience would be useful, it was now.

At 37, and just months removed from knee surgery, physical rather than mental challenges may pose the biggest obstacles to Djokovic’s quest for renewed dominance. “I have no limitations in my mind,” he said at Wimbledon. “I want to keep going and playing as long as I feel I can play at this high level.”

During the homecoming celebration in Belgrade after the Olympics, Djokovic indicated that he had nothing left to win. “I feel fulfilled, complete, let’s celebrate!” he said. In the next breath, he opened up the possibility of playing until he is 40 and defending his title at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

There are a number of factors in his favour. His children are now at an age where they can see their father in action, which seems to serve as an added inspiration, Djokovic crying in their arms in Paris and developing a new and knowing violin celebration for his daughter.

The Olympic gold was a celebration for the whole family. (Amin Mohammad Jamali / Getty Images)

Above all, he has the sport. One of the great things about tennis is that even if you’ve won everything, there are always new challenges to overcome. New strokes to develop, new tactics to try.

Against Albot on Monday, Djokovic certainly looked motivated as he pulled off some of his tricks at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Breaking serve while trailing 40-0. Hitting the forehand harder than he’d ever done in his career. Securing the second set with a second-serve ace. Why not? A second-round match against Djere on Wednesday might not be quite the Olympic gold medal match, but give Djokovic a court, an opponent and a crowd and he’ll still find a point to prove.

(Top photo: Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)