Leading athlete welfare and injury prevention expert Stephen Smith has discussed Novak Djokovic\u2019s remarkable longevity, and also the legendary Serb\u2019s ongoing battle with his body.<\/p>\n
Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs \u2014 the world\u2019s leading sports science and data company \u2014 also offered his take on the possible impact of Djokovic\u2019s approach to scheduling.<\/p>\n
For the first 20 years of Djokovic<\/a>\u2018s staggering career (2003-2023), he was able to remain healthy consistently and largely avoided major injuries. An elbow injury that emerged in 2016 and required surgery in 2018 was the most serious physical issue Djokovic sustained in this period.<\/p>\n However, Djokovic \u2014 who turned 38 in May \u2014 has been affected by injuries far more frequently over the last 18 months, particularly in the latter stages of Grand Slams.<\/p>\n The 24-time Grand Slam winner tore the medial meniscus in his right knee at the 2024 French Open. He made an incredibly quick recovery from knee surgery to reach the final at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships and win the 2024 Paris Olympics, but he has faced a host of problems since.<\/p>\n The former world No 1 retired from his Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev in January due to a hamstring tear and was visibly hampered in his Wimbledon semi-final loss to Jannik Sinner<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n Djokovic then looked physically spent after just two sets of his US Open semi-final defeat to Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> last month, having looked short of fitness throughout the event.<\/p>\n He also faced physical difficulties<\/a> throughout his Shanghai Masters campaign and was clearly suffering in his semi-final loss to Valentin Vacherot.<\/p>\n While Djokovic refused to shed light on what he was dealing with against Vacherot<\/a>, he gave a clear insight into his struggles with his\u00a0his body after his quarter-final win in Shanghai.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s always something happening with the body pretty much every match that I play right now,\u201d the world No 5 said after beating Zizou Bergs at the Masters 1000 event.<\/p>\n Speaking exclusively to Tennis365, Smith shared his thoughts on Djokovic\u2019s ability to remain at the elite level into his late thirties, and also the injury issues he is being derailed by.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s testament to both probably his genetics and I think his professionalism, as well and the investment he\u2019s made in his body and his career,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut when you look at him and compare him to other athletes in the same sport of the same kind of age profile, et cetera, and that exposure to the same level of game and demands, I think he\u2019s a unicorn, for sure.<\/p>\n Can tennis stars manage the schedule better after Carlos Alcaraz injury setback? Leading expert reveals<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Have we just witnessed the end of Novak Djokovic? Crushing reality may have hit home<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think, obviously at his age, and I think with the amount that he competes, wear and tear\u2026 he\u2019s had a hamstring issue that forced him out of the Australian Open semi-final earlier this year, he had a groin injury at Wimbledon and a meniscus issue last year at the French Open.<\/p>\n \u201cI think all of these bits and pieces are indicative of wear and tear. But also, if you think of the impact, it\u2019s kind of looked like, his career, he was extremely healthy, and now he\u2019s sort of had four of five injuries that have popped up in a row.<\/p>\n \u201cI think sometimes that time off that you get when you\u2019re nursing an injury means that your training load drops and then you come back in and you\u2019re expected to compete at the same level, and that can cause a cascading sequence of injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n In the latter years of his career, Djokovic has played far more sparingly than he did in his physical prime, with the intention of peaking for the four Grand Slams. He played only 11 events in 2024, while Shanghai was just his 12th event of 2025.<\/p>\n There is an argument that Djokovic\u2019s limited schedule could be a factor in the problems he has encountered when he has gone deep at majors in 2024 and 2025<\/p>\n Asked whether playing more outside the Grand Slams could help Djokovic, Smith said:\u00a0\u201cAbsolutely, I think we often see this where player management kicks in and we try to rest our players more and give them more time off.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then it turns out that that actually backfires because the physicality of our games, the intensity of our games, regardless of sport today, have only got bigger, faster and stronger.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then we end up, we try to rely on, \u2018He\u2019s got a lot of miles in the bank, can we just rely on that and pop back in and do less?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re still expected to play at the same physicality and the same intensity, you\u2019re still expected to back it up, day after day, in the middle of those big competitions as well. And that takes an enormous toll on your body.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if we don\u2019t have that kind of resilience built in, we\u2019re not constantly training to that level, then that can be a huge issue.<\/p>\n \u201cSo yes, I do think at times that too much rest and too much recovery can also have a negative impact. We\u2019re always trying to find that perfect balance between what\u2019s the right amount of stimulus to keep people healthy without overloading them and breaking them, or without underloading them and leaving them susceptible to injury as well.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT: ATP Rankings Winners & Losers Shanghai: Vacherot & Rinderknech soar, Alcaraz profits, Sinner & Djokovic miss out<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Novak Djokovic is a \u2018unicorn\u2019 \u2013 but is his schedule contributing to his injuries? Leading expert reveals<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Leading athlete welfare and injury prevention expert Stephen Smith has discussed Novak Djokovic\u2019s remarkable longevity, and also the legendary Serb\u2019s ongoing battle with his body. Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs \u2014 the world\u2019s leading sports science and data company \u2014 also offered his take on the possible impact of Djokovic\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis Features<\/h2>\n