{"id":611496,"date":"2026-05-30T04:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611496\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T04:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T04:44:10","slug":"novak-djokovic-is-french-open-defeat-clearest-sign-father-time-is-catching-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611496\/","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic: Is French Open defeat clearest sign Father Time is catching up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Instead, he must now reset and recharge to go again at Wimbledon next month.<\/p>\n

Given he is a seven-time champion on a grass surface which younger players have struggled to master, Djokovic will always fancy his chances at the All England Club.<\/p>\n

Djokovic can never be ruled out of becoming the oldest major men’s singles champion in the Open Era, but Father Time has been sat waiting on his shoulder for a good while.<\/p>\n

By rights, he should probably be basking in a post-retirement glow by now. <\/p>\n

Coaching a young compatriot away from the public glare like Andy Murray, perhaps. Doing a promotional tour for a new Netflix documentary<\/a> like Rafael Nadal, maybe.<\/p>\n

While his long-time rivals move into the next phase of their lives, Djokovic was retching at the side of a court in an attempt to summon the energy to beat a teenager.<\/p>\n

It is a testament to his superpower that he still wants to push himself to such limits against much younger opponents.<\/p>\n

As we have seen time and time again, Djokovic’s insatiable appetite for the sport’s biggest prizes will never diminish.<\/p>\n

But, having reached at least the semi-finals at the past five Grand Slams, this was the clearest sign yet that the ageing process was finally catching up with him.<\/p>\n

Djokovic looked in complete control as he moved two sets ahead, but could not maintain his level as Fonseca proved he is the real deal.<\/p>\n

“It would be nice if it was best-of-three,” Djokovic smiled.<\/p>\n

“I just ran out of gas, to be honest. I didn’t feel good at all on the court in the next couple of sets.”<\/p>\n

Djokovic has always thrived in the best-of-five format of the majors, beating almost anybody who has stood in his way for the best part of two years.<\/p>\n

The only exceptions have been Sinner, Alcaraz and the muscle injury which forced him to quit against Zverev at last year’s Australian Open.<\/p>\n

Everyone else has not been good enough, or not had the mentality, to see veteran Djokovic off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Instead, he must now reset and recharge to go again at Wimbledon next month. Given he is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-611496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}