Editorial Dragos Suciu: No more nole?

The global perspective of fans on tennis over the last 20 years has been similar to football. The landmarks were there for so long that it is as hard to imagine that it will be something like it is and remember that it was something before.

Each time a generation, all the more we talk about the most valuable, disappears from the firmament, hyperbolization of the past appears. Moreover, when time shows you that resources have begun to limit themselves drastically it is very difficult not to resort to memory, not so far, of its peak.

And that makes you try, struggle and not accept. Numbers on your fingers withdraws the great athletes decided at the optimal moment. Pete Sampras would be an example, the one who retired immediately after winning the US Open 2002 final.

The curious case of Mr. Djokovic

Novak Djokovic is most likely the best tennis player of all time. About any global statistical aspect it designates it as a number 1 of the sport, although the impact has been as great as in the case of others.

Arriving almost 38 years, which he will turn over two weeks, nole is giving more and more signs that everything is ready. Without a title from August 2024, when he completed his great trophies with the Olympic gold, the Serb has reached only two finals so far and lost them in a minimum of sets.

The rest seemed like a shadow of the player from 2011, 2015, even 2023. Maybe the time has come to be put into practice and, more than that, almost impossible to accept. That of withdrawal.

The final at Miami 2025 was a crucial moment for this sunset of the career of the biggest Balkan athlete in history. After an excellent course, Djokovic faced Jakub Mensik, a 20 -year -old Czech, who had played a single final in his career. And he had lost her.

In addition to confirming relevance in first -rate tennis and in 2025, Nole would have reached the terminal of the 100 titles, one touched by only two players before it, Jimmy Connors and Roger Federer.

Exceeded in most moments of the Czech play speed, Mensik being still far away from Sinner's level or Alcaraz, Djokovic managed to take the sets in two tiebreaks, the most intense and fierce moments at the level of mental battles. And he lost them. He lost them because the doubt can get more present than the experience especially in critical times.

The spring of sighs

From that final, the Serb has played two more matches, with Alejandro Tabilo at Monte Carlo and with Matteo Arnaldi in Madrid. He lost both of them, with the same score, 6-3, 6-4. Neither Arnaldi nor Tabilo are Top 30 ATP players, but they managed to expose Djokovic as if he had nothing to look for there.

Only not the defeat was the poster. The nervousness from the training, the instability on the ground and the statements offered have taken all this situation, of form crisis, in an area from which I do not know if it will be able to go out. When the doubt about what you can still weigh if you can do enough to prevent your inheritance, it means that the sporting end has already called the door.

I do not think that his biggest rivals chose the right time for withdrawal. Roger Federer did it at Laver Cup leaving the memory of a 0-6 collected in his last official set, even in what was called his living room, on the Wimbledon power station.

Rafael Nadal was tormented in a season in which he selected his tournaments, that goodbye, with at least one ATP title, being canceled by the anonymous Nuno Borges, a Portuguese who took 5 games in the Bastad final. Andy Murray, the current coach of the Serb, had the biggest problems with pressing the Stop button. After a few seasons of drift, in which he also played enough Challenger tournaments, the Scottish withdrew in the summer of 2024, quite a while after becoming a platoon player.

Between disappointment and hope

The postponement of the withdrawal can make you a lot of aura and inheritance. No one wants to remember the recoil, the descent of the standards and, implicitly, the failure, when he thinks of the favorite athlete because this can hurt more than the separation. Novak Djokovic is still in the Top 10 ATP and, at least from this point of view, the end of his story can still be far away.

On the other hand, I do not see how Novak Djokovic could win a Grand Slam and it is very difficult for me to believe that a big trophy could conquer. Perhaps the only stake is that title 100. Or maybe the only stakes were the Olympic gold. And from there everything was to be in vain. Only time can answer that. And time does not forgive anyone, not even Novak Djokovic.