Grand Slam winner raises Djokovic retirement theory resting on Open | Tennis | Sport

Novak Djokovic’s finish in the Australian Open could be the difference between continuing to play and retirement, according to Mark Woodforde. While the Serbian tennis sensation is hopeful of making it to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, question marks surround Djokovic’s chances of sticking around in the sport until then.

At 38, Djokovic has achieved pretty much everything that tennis has to offer. He heads into this month’s Australian Open searching for a mammoth 25th Grand Slam, while he boasts an Olympic gold medal from the 2024 Summer Games in Paris, as well as a bronze from Beijing 2008. However, with his last major title coming in the form of the 2023 US Open, questions have surrounded the topic of retirement in particular.

And as per Woodforde, who has a remarkable tally of 17 Grand Slams to his own name, the decision to call time on an illustrious career could come sooner than many fans anticipate. Speaking to Tennis365, he said: “My opinion is if he doesn’t post a good result at the AO, I wouldn’t be surprised if he calls it a day.

“It’s just something that my opinion, my thought process. Mediocrity is not something that you put into the same sentence with Novak Djokovic. I think last year, he could put that down to, you know, injuries and kind of recovering from the season before.

“I think the ageing process, unfortunately, is catching up with Novak. It accelerates as we get older. I think this is going to be really key, the Australian Open, for him and whether we’ll see the rest of Novak Djokovic in 2026.”

Elsewhere, Pat Cash told the same publication that he cannot see Djokovic getting the better of the next generation of tennis stars in Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz at this year’s Australian Open. He explained: “He’s always coming up with solutions to problems, so it will be really interesting to see how he goes at the Australian Open.

“Has he played enough matches? Has he trained hard enough? Is he saving his body just for the matches? And if so, will that work?

“I don’t see him beating Alcaraz and Sinner in back-to-back five-set matches, and that’s his problem. He can get to the semi-final again, but then he is likely to have a familiar problem.”