The start of the Paris Olympics is now very close and all athletes are reaching the Olympic village. It’s only been three years since the last edition in Tokyo, postponed to 2021 because of the pandemic. Among the athletes who will participate in their last Olympics, there is definitely the tennis legend Novak Djokovic.
Although he is perhaps the greatest tennis player of all time, Nole has never won an Olympic gold medal. The 37-year-old from Belgrade tried his best to make this dream come true, but he never managed to express his best tennis in this event.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion will make his final attempt in Paris this year, on the red clay of the French Open. Novak is not going to the Olympics in the best way, since he has not won a title yet in 2024 and was annihilated by Carlos Alcaraz in the final of the Wimbledon Championships.
The former world number 1 has admitted that he feels inferior to Alcaraz and Sinner at this point, but he has no intention of giving up and is training hard to get fit in Paris. Red clay is not Nole’s favourite surface, although the Serbian has won the French Open three times (2016, 2021 and 2023). A gold medal in Paris would allow Serbian legend Djokovic to make tennis history for the umpteenth time and silence all his detractors.
Djokovic is focused
Meanwhile, news has come that Novak Djokovic will not stay in the Olympic village in Paris and will not play any form of doubles during the event. The Serbian legend wants to focus only on the singles, where he hopes to get one of the few awards still missing in his palmarés.
In a recent interview with Sportklub, former Roger Federer’s coach and former ATP ace Ivan Ljubicic reflected on Nole’s current status: “For the Olympic Games, he (Djokovic) will definitely have the motivation, but what will happen after? Without Federer, without Nadal, the tour is a little different for him, it’s not the same motivation. Boris Becker told me that it seemed to him that Novak had practically accepted Alcaraz’s superiority, which he had never done with Rafa and Roger. We are not far from the generational change. That’s life.” The last time Novak Djokovic had not won a single title by August was in 2005.
Nole was disappointed by his level during the Wimbledon final: “I was inferior on the court. That’s it. He was a better player. He played every single shot better than I did. I did all I can to prepare myself for this match and this tournament in general. If someone told me I would play Wimbledon finals three, four weeks ago, I would take it for sure.
Of course, I do feel disappointed. It’s a bitter taste to lose the finals the way I did today. I can always be self-critical, which I am. I can always find the flaws, which I can already see. I don’t think that would change too much the course of the match, to be honest. From the very beginning, you could see he was at least half a step better than I am in every way. I also feel like, in a match-up today against the best player right now in the world for sure, other than Jannik, and both of them are the best this year by far, I’m not at that level.”
Nole will play only the singles
The draw ceremony will take place on Thursday, July 25th and it will be important to understand which opponents will fall to Djokovic. The former world number 1 has confessed that the Paris Olympics and the US Open are his two main targets in the second part of 2024.
Speaking with Eurosport, ATP legend Boris Becker spoke about Nole: “There is enough time between Wimbledon on grass and the first round of the Olympics in Paris on clay for him to adapt and he will know what to do now. Wimbledon was important for him to ensure he is one of the favourites for Paris.
There were reasons why he lost in Melbourne against Italian ace Jannik Sinner, then he was injured in Paris and was well beaten by an unbelievable player in Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon. Early on in the season, he said the Olympics was his main goal and that is one of the reasons why I expect to see a very good Nole Djokovic in Paris. Look, the competition never sleeps. Even if you have been used to winning every year, this will not last forever for anybody.”
