On the eve of his 20th appearance at the U.S. Open later this month, 39-year-old Novak Djokovic has no intention of keeping tennis fans in suspense.
“I have no date in my mind, to be honest, the expiry date of my career,” Djokovic says in the opening minutes of “The Wolf in Winter”, the documentary released Thursday on Prime Video.
“I know a lot of people are speculating that, a lot of people are retiring me for many years. Why would you want to retire me? When I’m still playing and competing at the highest level?”
Djokovic is the subject of the latest documentary exploring the career twilight of a tennis great, and the noise around the end of that career — and what makes for a good ending — has a familiar timbre.
But it undercuts the project early on by planting a nagging question in viewers’ minds. If Djokovic isn’t struggling with his decision to walk away, what is that discussion for?
In his previous two sports documentaries, “The Last Dance” and “André the Giant,” director Jason Hehir fixed his camera on two larger-than-life celebrities and reminded audiences that they never truly know their heroes, employing delightful interview techniques and archival footage to investigate the psyches and forgotten backstories of Michael Jordan and the pro wrestler André René Roussimoff.
Hehir, alongside Connor Schell’s Words + Pictures and Sadoux Productions, chose a different challenge for Djokovic: Following a sporting giant whose reputation is much more complicated — and whose story arc doesn’t yet have an ending.
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For sports fans new to tennis, or documentary buffs who don’t watch sports, the 90-minute film is a glossily packaged, bird’s-eye view of a 24-time Grand Slam champion — an excellent Djokovic 101. But for anyone who’s even been loosely aware of tennis’ storylines and main characters over the past 20 years, the film doesn’t probe enough to reveal anything new about the champion, and the incomplete nature of Djokovic’s story makes for a frustrating lack of stakes. It never quite answers a central question: Why now?
Netflix’s incisive Rafael Nadal docuseries, “Rafa”, premiered in May, years after the Spaniard retired. Roger Federer also waited until retirement to release his documentary about the final days of his pro career. Other tennis players who have released projects have done so much earlier in their careers.
Djokovic’s late-career film — the winter of the title — offers a teasing ambiguity that it never quite fully mines. Without his final act in place, it feels like the first part of a series, something Djokovic himself echoed in an interview about the project last month.
“It wasn’t easy, because the format that we chose to do it in is 90 minutes. Condensing my whole life story and career journey into 90 minutes is almost impossible. So hopefully, this is just the beginning of the journey, just an opening project. But obviously the first act has to leave the best impression,” he said.
Djokovic, who is not credited as a producer, said the most challenging part of the film was surrendering control of his own story. Djokovic partnered with Amazon rather than produce his own project, as countless athletes do these days, to reach the widest audience possible and because he admires Hehir’s work.
“There’s a power in presenting your story along with other people who are not necessarily emotionally connected to you, and presenting you in a more objective way, through a different lens,” Djokovic said.
“I’m excited to hear people’s feedback and opinions on what they feel, what the documentary is triggering in them — hopefully inspiring them — in some way. I’m hoping that people, particularly the ones who are not necessarily tennis or sports fans, can learn more about my story, about moments that define me as a person and as a professional athlete.”
Scenes from Djokovic’s early years in wartime Serbia are undoubtedly the most emotional, and interviews with his parents and wife Jelena shed light on a childhood stolen first by war, then by the pressure of being told as a pre-teen that Djokovic must use his prodigious talent to provide for his family.
At 12, he moved away from his parents and brothers to Germany, where he did not speak the language, to attend a prestigious tennis academy. The documentary introduces the Serbian word “inat,” describing a national psychology born from conflict that goes on to color Djokovic’s life.
“When people doubt you, when everyone is basically against you, that’s when you use that inat, that force, of stubbornness to prove everybody wrong,” Djokovic said.
His childhood, and inat, are presented as the foundation for nearly everything in his career. Children around Djokovic’s age were not allowed much time for play in their young lives, Jelena says, so when Djokovic turned pro, he liked to have fun on court, which ruffled some feathers.
Andre Agassi, another prominent voice who spent a year coaching Djokovic, explained that “inat” is part of the reason Djokovic needs to feel anger and spite to be motivated on a tennis court, despite being a naturally gentle person. Nadal is also featured in an interview, though Federer is conspicuously absent.
The film reflects Djokovic’s career back on him, but cannot move past the fact that its ending remains unresolved. (Izhar Khan / Getty Images)
The high premium Djokovic places on freedom is brought up in one of the most interesting sections of the documentary, which focuses on the Australian government deporting Djokovic in 2022 before the Australian Open because he was unvaccinated against Covid-19. He had an exemption to play because he had contracted the virus within six months before the start of the tournament, but a panel of three judges ruled that the government was within its rights to cancel Djokovic’s visa out of concern that his presence could be a danger to public health.
Djokovic is not anti-vaccines, he says in the film, despite the anti-vax community co-opting him as a figurehead. Instead, he says he is in favor of the personal freedom to decide whether he would receive the coronavirus vaccine.
“I’m pro freedom to choose what you’re going to do with the integrity of your body — and by the way, I missed Slams and tournaments, I didn’t play in America for a couple years because I was not vaccinated. It’s fine. But in Australia I was allowed,” Djokovic says in the documentary.
His treatment in Australia left a bitter taste in his mouth, which was only exacerbated when the crowd in Melbourne booed him in 2025, when he retired due to injury in a semifinal against Alexander Zverev. It was an astonishing reaction to any injured player, much less someone of Djokovic’s stature.
Here, the documentary merely brushes against Djokovic’s complicated relationship with tennis fans without delving into his feelings on the topic or how they might have evolved over his career. It’s a pattern throughout the film, which can never escape the feeling of provisionality that comes from Djokovic’s having more to give to tennis and the world. More winter is coming. The wolf will roam on.