{"id":1629,"date":"2026-01-18T20:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T20:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=1629"},"modified":"2026-01-18T20:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T20:00:02","slug":"novak-djokovic-motivation-question-asked-by-former-top-10-star-at-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=1629","title":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic motivation question asked by former top 10 star at Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic<\/a> is back in Melbourne to compete in the Australian Open for a remarkable 21st time, but former world No 7 Barbara Schett has suggested the chances of the Serbian achieving his dream of winning a 25th Grand Slam title may be over.<\/p>\n

At the age of 38, Djokovic is striving to win an 11th Australian Open title, but he has not played a competitive match since early November and heads into a new year with fresh question marks over how long he will continue to perform at the highest level.<\/p>\n

Djokovic has hinted he would like to finish his career playing for Serbia at the 2028 Olympics<\/a>, but that feels like a long shot for a player who admits he is struggling to compete against the dominant duo of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner at the top of the men\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

And when Schett sums up why Djokovic continues to compete at an age when most players have given up, she struggles to come up with credible answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just loves it so much,\u201d Schett told Tennis365. \u201cIf he wants to keep going, I love it because it gives us something to talk about.<\/p>\n

More Tennis News<\/h2>\n

Novak Djokovic clarifies injury rumours after suffering pre-Australian Open \u2018setback\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

John McEnroe reacts to big Novak Djokovic announcement as he questions Federer & Nadal<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he achieved last year, reaching the semi-final at every Grand Slam is unbelievable at his age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just worried that he has not played much after pulling out of Adelaide, how he is going to perform now.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe beat Alcaraz here last year and then had to pull out against Zverev and that\u2019s the problem. The body will always let him down.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo win a Grand Slam title? Never say no with someone who has won 24 times, but the chances are not that good.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe says he wants to play the Olympics again, that\u2019s how long he wants to play. Eventually, he will have to retire. They will have to carry him off the court.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what he is thinking. It\u2019s incredible how long his career has been and he still has the drive and passion to practice and go through the off-season. It\u2019s incredible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not expecting him to reach another semi-finals and if he does, I will take my hat off to him. Everything he does not is just the icing on the cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Former world No 2 Alex Corretja also spoke to Tennis365 about Djokovic\u2019s hopes, as he offered a more upbeat verdict for the Serbian.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know what is going to happen in tennis and in life in general,\u201d Corretja told Tennis365.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s say one of them loses in the quarter-finals and he beats one of them in the semis. Then you are in the final with another player and if it is [Alexander] Zverev, that is also a tough task.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is more about how he is feeling when he gets into the main matches of the quarter-finals and the semis like last year at Wimbledon when, in my opinion, he was toast before he played Sinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cOr is it like the US Open when it looked like he was okay, but they he couldn\u2019t manage to do well against Carlitos.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot playing the week before is difficult because all the matches come at you and you don\u2019t know how the body will react. Physically and mentally, sometimes it is exhausting, so we will see.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully he can be there. It would be great to have Novak there again playing for even more history. That would be awesome for tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch every match of the Australian Open live on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a>\u00a0from 18 Jan<\/strong><\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Novak Djokovic told his Grand Slam dream might not be blocked by Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Novak Djokovic motivation question asked by former top 10 star at Australian Open<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic is back in Melbourne to compete in the Australian Open for a remarkable 21st time, but former world No 7 Barbara Schett has suggested the chances of the Serbian achieving his dream of winning a 25th Grand Slam title may be over. At the age of 38, Djokovic is striving to win an […]<\/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-1629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629","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=1629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}