{"id":90369,"date":"2025-08-23T04:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T04:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/90369\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T04:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T04:23:09","slug":"novak-djokovic-makes-concerning-admission-just-days-before-us-open-tennis-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/90369\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic makes concerning admission just days before US Open – Tennis – Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic has confessed that he’s heading into the sweltering US Open<\/a> feeling “cold” due to his lack of enthusiasm for two-week Masters events.<\/p>\n

The 24-time Grand Slam champ, who lost his last match to Jannik Sinner<\/a> in the Wimbledon semifinals on July 11, admitted that at 38, he’s starting to feel his age.<\/p>\n

He even went as far as saying, “I’m going into the match with tank half empty” when it comes to the tail end of Grand Slams. It comes as a prediction about his retirement has been made.<\/a><\/p>\n

Djokovic opted out of the Masters events in Toronto and Cincinnati – which now span over 12 days – before attempting to secure his first Major title since the 2023 US Open. The four-time champion is just one Grand Slam title away from breaking the record of 24 he currently shares with Margaret Court.<\/p>\n

Despite temperatures in New York<\/a> expected to reach 80 degrees this weekend, Djokovic was asked if he would be starting the final Grand Slam event of the season feeling “cold”.<\/p>\n

He responded: “‘Cold’ in terms of the matches, official matches. Obviously I didn’t have any matches since Wimbledon. So it is the right term in a sense, but I have put in a lot of training in last three, four weeks.<\/p>\n

“I decided not to play because I wanted to spend more time with my family. And to be honest, I think I earned my right and have the luxury of kind of choosing, picking and choosing where I want to go and what I want to play.<\/p>\n

DON’T MISS<\/p>\n

“To be quite frank with you, I don’t enjoy the two-week Masters events anymore. It’s just way too long for me. My focus is mostly on the slams, and I have said that before. I’d like to play more of the other tournaments, but I just, we have currently informally, unofficially, 12 Grand Slams a year, you know, when you think about it. I mean, Grand Slam is two weeks and the other Masters events are almost two weeks, as well.<\/p>\n

“It’s just not any more prioritizing the heavy schedule as I used to. I’m not chasing the rankings or building up my points or defending, et cetera. I just don’t think about it anymore. For me, it’s really about where do I find motivation and joy? Where will I be inspired to play the best tennis? And where do I care to be, really, and play?<\/p>\n

“And Slams are obviously the four main tournaments where I always feel the most motivation. I don’t actually have any schedule other than Slams, to be honest.”<\/p>\n

Djokovic also hinted he won’t be competing for much longer despite his scaled-back calendar.<\/p>\n

“I want to balance things out with other priorities in life,” he said. “Family being, of course, the main one and being there for the important dates, speaking of which I’m going to miss out, maybe going to miss out on my daughter’s birthday (Tara). It’s the 2nd of September, so if I’m doing well I’m still here.<\/p>\n

“But those are types of things that I really don’t want to be missing anymore. So it’s just on a personal level for me important to be there, to show up, you know, for the people that have been showing up for me for all these years playing tennis.”<\/p>\n

“But those are types of things that I really don’t want to be missing anymore. So it’s just on a personal level for me important to be there, to show up, you know, for the people that have been showing up for me for all these years playing tennis.”<\/p>\n

This year, Toronto and Cincinnati joined the list of Masters events that have extended to the 12-day format, following the initial trial in Rome, Madrid, and Shanghai in 2023.<\/p>\n

When asked if the second-tier events should revert to one-week tournaments, Djokovic responded, “I don’t see how that’s going to happen, to be honest.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic has confessed that he’s heading into the sweltering US Open feeling “cold” due to his lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,2188,2083,1705,53285,82,593,1706,2084],"class_list":{"0":"post-90369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-grand-slam","11":"tag-novak-djokovic","12":"tag-retirement","13":"tag-retirement-concerns","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-tennis","16":"tag-tennis-section","17":"tag-us-open"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}