Novak Djokovic returns to Roland Garros nine months after Olympic gold in search of another milestone

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The last time Novak Djokovic arrived at Roland Garros in Paris, he did so in questionable health. He had no coach. He was facing questions about how he could possibly win a tennis tournament, having not won one all year.

Everyone who follows tennis knows how that ended: the 24-time Grand Slam champion face-down in the red clay of Court Philippe-Chatrier, shaking uncontrollably after finally securing the Olympic gold medal that he had craved for so long by beating Carlos Alcaraz in the best men’s match of the year.

Nine months later, Djokovic will return to Paris, chasing another elusive goal: the 25th Grand Slam title that will take him ahead of Australian player Margaret Court in the all-time lists. He has no coach. He is facing questions about how he can possibly win a major tennis tournament after an indifferent start to 2025 and a thus-far disastrous clay-court season.

He lost his first match in Monte Carlo, Monaco. He lost his first match in Madrid. He broke up with Andy Murray, his rival-turned-coach. He skipped the Italian Open in Rome. Days out from the start of the French Open, he finds himself not in Paris for preparation, but in Geneva, playing a small tournament in a last-ditch search for rhythm.

“Kind of a new reality for me,” he said in a news conference after losing to then-world No. 44 Matteo Arnaldi in the Spanish capital. He offered up a lament encompassing nearly everything he has experienced this season.

“Trying to win a match or two, not really thinking about getting far in the tournament … it’s a challenge mentally to face these kinds of sensations on the court,” he said.

Don’t include him in the favorites for the French Open title, he said. On form, few would argue that he is in the same postcode as Alcaraz, the defending champion, and Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1 making his return from a three-month anti-doping ban.

This is how it was a year ago. There he was in Geneva, gasping for air during a semifinal loss to Tomáš Macháč of the Czech Republic. Then he found his tennis and rammed his way into the French Open fourth round. After an improbable five-set win over Francisco Cerúndolo, in which Djokovic tore the medial meniscus in his right knee, he withdrew before his quarterfinal match.

Three and a half weeks later, he was at Wimbledon, telling people to expect nothing from him so soon after surgery. He made the final, essentially playing on one leg. When he got there, Alcaraz routed him. Two weeks after that, the Olympics began and Djokovic summoned all of himself to do what looked impossible.

Despite his recent struggles, Djokovic has not lost a match at Roland Garros to someone not named Rafael Nadal since Dominic Thiem, perhaps the best men’s clay-courter of his generation outside of Djokovic and Nadal, beat him in five sets in the 2019 French Open semifinals. Both Thiem and Nadal retired last year.

Djokovic, who loves adversity, perseveres.

Throughout his career, he has summoned some of his best tennis in the face of his biggest challenges. When the world declares that he has no chance, Djokovic proves otherwise. It happened in the Olympic final. Alcaraz had destroyed him at Wimbledon. Clay requires less fleet-footed movement than grass, but players have to sustain that movement for longer. But Djokovic played two perfect sets of tennis, beating Alcaraz 7-6, 7-6 in a match that left both of them in tears.

He enters this French Open as the No. 6 seed. Alcaraz and Sinner are No. 2 and No. 1, slated to meet in the final tennis craves. To win, Djokovic will likely have to beat them both in the same event. No one has ever done that — except Djokovic, at the 2023 ATP Tour Finals.

He has been losing to far lesser players than those two this season. Arnaldi, Alejandro Tabilo, Botic van de Zandschulp. He may yet do so again, in Geneva — or he may win his 100th singles title, another milestone for a career that has seen almost everything in tennis.

He’s Novak Djokovic, though: 24-time Grand Slam winner; Olympic gold medalist; to many, the greatest men’s player of all time.

Or is he?

(Top photo: Corrine Dubreuil / SIPA USA via Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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