He is the Australian, French and US Open champion, Wimbledon finalist and year-end No 1 for a record-extending eighth time. In 2023, he became the winner of 24 grand slams, 40 Masters 1000 events, seven ATP Finals titles, and celebrated an unprecedented 400th week at the top of the world rankings. What more can be said about the master of milestones that is Novak Djokovic?
Well, we could start by looking beyond mere numbers. The more Djokovic continues to defy the passage of time, racking up records and redefining the boundaries of what is possible at the venerable age of 36, the further the collective gaze seems to drift from the qualities that underpin his greatness. The Serb is a shoo-in as player of the season, yet many accounts of his year could just as easily have been composed on an abacus as a keyboard.
So yes, we know that this year Djokovic became the first player ever to win a triple career grand slam; that he matched Chris Evert’s record of 34 grand slam final appearances at the French Open, then went on to eclipse it at Wimbledon and the US Open; that his 257 career wins against top-10 opposition is the most in history. The what is familiar; the how often seems to get lost amid a welter of statistics.
What makes Djokovic so good – and how has he been able to sustain such astonishing levels of performance and achievement deep into his mid-thirties? Any answer must begin with the Serb’s teak-tough mentality, an aspect of his game that only grows stronger with time. From default to deportation, private turmoil to public vilification, there is little Djokovic hasn’t been through in his career. Yet he has elevated the ability to overcome adversity into an art form, acquiring a mental and emotional resilience that borders on the impenetrable.
That fortitude proved key for Djokovic at several critical junctures in his 2023 season. At the Australian Open, a hamstring tear threatened to derail his title defence as surely as the controversy that erupted after his father, Srdjan, posed for photographs with Vladimir Putin supporters. A faltering start to the European clay-court swing raised doubts about his ability to capitalise on Rafael Nadal’s French Open absence that deepened when he scrawled an inflammatory message about Kosovo on a TV camera lens, prompting another off-court storm. And then there was the narrow defeat to Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final that prevented him from equalling a glut of records and had many heralding a changing of the guard.
Had things gone differently, any of those moments might have altered the trajectory of Djokovic’s year. But he rebounded on each occasion, collecting a 10th title in Melbourne, a third Roland Garros crown, and shrugging off the disappointment of Wimbledon to notch up 12 straight victories on US hard courts, where he avenged his loss to Alcaraz in a titanic Cincinnati Masters final before winning at Flushing Meadows for the first time in five years.
“Doesn’t matter, Wimbledon,” said Goran Ivanisevic, Djokovic’s coach, after the Serb’s triumph in New York. “We came to Cincinnati. It was not even mentioned one time, that Wimbledon [final]. It’s past. When you lose, it’s past. You know you can’t get it back. That day Carlos was [the] better player, and he won. Very simple.
“So we came to Cincinnati, prepared for this tournament. He won Cincinnati. He’s the guy who just forgets things and moves on. That’s why he’s so good.”
And so it is, although mental toughness was hardly the only factor in Djokovic’s latest dominant season. His success was also rooted in the enduring physical prowess that stems from a scrupulous attention to training, diet and recovery, and which enabled him to stay the distance with Alcaraz this summer for eight hours and 31 minutes, the combined duration of the Wimbledon and Cincinnati finals. Lest we forget, Djokovic laid down a marker for those performances with his superior durability in the semi-finals of Roland Garros, where he romped to victory after the 20-year-old Spaniard succumbed to cramp early in the third set.
Djokovic’s reputation as the iron man of tennis is a matter of boundless professionalism and boundless perfectionism. Ivanisevic spoke at Roland Garros of how Djokovic is forever fretting about his game – a supposedly misfiring backhand here, a glitchy serve there – even when those around him think everything looks perfect. Physically and technically, the Serb’s quest for marginal gains is relentless.
“He’s keeping his body great, he’s in great shape,” said Ivanisevic. “He’s unbelievable, he’s still moving like a cat on the court. He’s there, like a ninja, he’s everywhere.”
It helps, of course, that the elastic excellence of Djokovic’s movement is matched by the quality of his shot-making. Widely regarded as the finest returner in the sport’s history, Djokovic ranked fourth among the leading returners on the ATP Tour in 2023, behind only Daniil Medvedev, Alcaraz and the rapidly improving Jannik Sinner. Whether any of those players were more effective with their first shot after the return is questionable, however, given the frequency with which the Serb emerged from his matches with a superior ratio of points won in rallies of four shots or fewer.
The brilliance of his return game notwithstanding, perhaps the most effective shot in Djokovic’s arsenal at this stage in his career is his service. What his delivery may lack in speed compared with the likes of Hubert Hurkacz and Stefanos Tsitsipas, the only men to finish above him among the game’s leading servers this year, Djokovic makes up for with his unerring accuracy and depth. His T-serve to the ad court – a surprise tactic he used to particularly telling effect in Paris, where returners expecting a wide kicker were repeatedly caught leaning the wrong way – is arguably the best in the sport. In New York, meanwhile, his sliced delivery to the deuce court wreaked havoc in the final against Medvedev, enabling him to dominate at the net.
Nothing in tennis mitigates the effects of ageing legs quite like a destructive serve that creates the platform for short, sharp points. Djokovic’s is helped in this respect by his ability to seize the initiative off either ball, deploying changes of pace, spin and direction as required. That he led the tour in 2023 for second serve points won adds credence to the old adage that a player is only as good as their second serve. Factor in a ground game that remains second to none, and a dexterity at the net that puts him comfortably among the world’s best volleyers, and it is easy to see why Djokovic possesses the tactical versatility to outwit all-comers. He has the tools to execute any game plan.
Yet Djokovic also has a virtue less obvious than a stroke or a strategy, one every bit as central to his longevity. It lies in the art of navigation. Put simply, Djokovic knows what to do and when – not just within a rally, a game or a set, but at every turn of the season. Nobody adjusts better to the shifting rhythms of the tennis calendar, or understands how to get the most from their mind, body and game when the need is greatest. So while Djokovic struggled in the build-up to Roland Garros, for example, he became a very different animal once the tournament began, winning all six tiebreaks in which he was involved without making a single unforced error.
It is this ability to delve deepest when it matters most that explains why he went into the Wimbledon final as the only player in the open era to win 14 consecutive breakers at the majors; why he has reached a record 47 grand slam semi-finals; why he stands alone as the only player to win three majors in a year on four occasions; why he has now won one-third of the slams he has contested, a ludicrous 24 out of 72. Peaking at the slams is the holy grail for all top players; Djokovic has found the formula, refining his scheduling and preparation for each phase of the year with the same precision he brings to those laser-guided groundstrokes.
“It’s no secret that grand slams are the highest priority for me, the highest goals on my priority list,” Djokovic said at Wimbledon. “Every time I start the season, I want to peak at these four tournaments. I try to organise my training schedule, my preparation weeks and all the [other] tournaments according to these priorities.
“All the tournaments that I play are basically leading me up to a grand slam. I’m really glad that this year, actually the last several years, my grand slam seasons are amazing. The results are fantastic.”
A man for all seasons, Djokovic was the man of the 2023 season.