Mats Wilander suggests what may happen to Novak Djokovic if he starts to lose more matches on tour
Father time is undefeated and when it does eventually catch up to Novak Djokovic Mats Wilander thinks it will impact him in a major way.
At the age of 37 Djokovic is still one of the world’s best players and comfortably ranked inside the top four.
He only just lost the World number one ranking to Jannik Sinner in June and in August Djokovic finally achieved his dream of becoming Olympic champion.
But it has been a challenging year for the Serbian, who cannot call himself a Grand Slam champion for the first time since 2017.
But he is still incredibly motivated to add to his storied legacy and this is something Mats Wilander is in awe of.
How does Mats Wilander think more frequent losses will affect Novak Djokovic?
Though he is still one of the ATP Tour’s top players, Novak Djokovic certainly found life harder on the circuit in 2024.
He suffered several more defeats, many of which were unexpected and injured his knee in June which forced him to cut his French Open campaign short.
But Djokovic is still driven to succeed and win the biggest titles, though he will now do so on a lighter schedule as he gets older.
However, as pleased as he is to see how committed Djokovic still is, he wonders how he will be impacted if early and unexpected defeats become more frequent. “Well, Novak Djokovic is one special human being. That we know,” Wilder told Eurosport.
Serbian Novak Djokovic trains at the Shanghai Masters tennis tournament in Shanghai on October 2, 2024. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP)
Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images
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“For him to have the drive to still go out there, trying to win matches in, of course, the big tournaments, but even in the small tournaments, and to play Davis Cup is absolutely incredible. It’s impressive that, physically, he wants to put in the effort.
“Can he, though, do well in the Grand Slams without playing that many tournaments? Can he do well in the Grand Slams if he goes to Shanghai with any feeling that this is not important?
“Because at some point when he starts losing to guys that are one, two or three in the world, but also guys that are 10 to 20 in the world, his confidence might be affected, and the other guys’ con
fidence is going to grow.”
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