Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to praise them too much,\u201d he added, smiling. \u201cThey have been praised enough! We know how good they are, and they absolutely deserve to be where they are. They are the dominant forces of the men\u2019s tennis at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic is starting a third season in pursuit of a 25th Grand Slam singles title, and has refined his approach for the Australian Open.<\/p>\n
He withdrew from his only scheduled tuneup tournament, knowing he is lacking \u201ca little bit of juice in my legs\u201d to compete with two young stars at the end of the majors and that he has to stay as pain-free as possible.<\/p>\n
Djokovic worked out how to beat Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the established rivals, before he turned it into the Big Three and then surpassed them both.<\/p>\n
A winner of 24 major championships \u2013 a record for the Open era and tied with Margaret Court for the most in the history of tennis \u2013 the 38-year-old Djokovic is doing everything to keep himself \u201cin the mix\u201d.<\/p>\n
Djokovic last won a major title at the 2023 US Open. Sinner and Alcaraz have split the eight since then. Sinner has won the last two Australian titles, and Alcaraz is in Australia, determined to add the title at Melbourne Park to complete a career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
Despite being hampered by injuries, Djokovic reached the semifinals at all four majors last year. A torn hamstring forced him to quit his Australian Open semifinal after ousting Alcaraz in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
By reminding himself that \u201c24 is also not a bad number,\u201d Djokovic said he is taking the \u201cnow-or-never type of mentality\u201d out of his every appearance at a major, because it is not allowing him to excel at his best.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinner and Alcaraz are playing on a different level right now from everybody else. That\u2019s a fact,\u201d Djokovic said, \u201cbut that doesn\u2019t mean that nobody else has a chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I like my chances always, in any tournament, particularly here.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Carlos](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/13321512-1768646156.jpg\")
Carlos Alcaraz, right, of Spain, greets Novak Djokovic, left, of Serbia after Alcaraz defeated Djokovic during the men\u2019s singles semifinals of the 2025 US Open Tennis Championships in September [Cristobel Herrera Ulashkevich\/EPA]<\/p>\n
The 10-time Australian Open champion starts Monday in a night match on Rod Laver Arena against No 71-ranked Pedro Martinez of Spain. Seeded fourth, he is in the same half of the draw as top-ranked Alcaraz. That means they can only meet in the semifinals here.<\/p>\n
Djokovic has not played an official tournament since November.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously took more time to rebuild my body, because I understand that in the last couple of years, that\u2019s what changed the most for me \u2013 takes more time to rebuild, and it also takes more time to reset or recover,\u201d he said. \u201cI had a little setback that prevented me to compete at Adelaide tournament \u2026 but it\u2019s been going on very well so far here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said there\u2019s \u201csomething here and there\u201d every day in terms of aches and pains, \u201cbut generally I feel good and look forward to competing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic cut ties earlier this month with the Professional Tennis Players Association, a group he co-founded, saying \u201cmy values and approach are no longer aligned with the current direction of the organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic and Canadian player Vasek Pospisil launched the PTPA in 2020, aiming to offer representation for players who are independent contractors in a largely individual sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough call for me to exit the PTPA, but I had to do that, because I felt like my name was \u2026 overused,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like people, whenever they think about PTPA, they think it\u2019s my organisation, which is a wrong idea from the very beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he is still supporting the concept.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am still wishing them all the best, because I think that there is room and there is a need for a 100% players-only representation organisation existing in our ecosystem,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic ready to turn back clock at Australian Open despite falling behind Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[1204,1246,3,1079,99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-413431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-sport","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}