Novak Djokovic has been warned by former world No 6 Gilles Simon that he is \u201cfighting against something difficult\u201d in his quest to win further Grand Slam and ATP Tour titles.<\/p>\n
Former world No 1 Djokovic<\/a> is considered by many to be the greatest male tennis player of all time, with 24 Grand Slam titles and 99 ATP\u00a0 titles to his name.<\/p>\n However, the Serbian has faced a difficult 15 months on tour, with several significant setbacks.<\/p>\n 2024 proved to be the 37-year-old\u2019s first Slamless season since 2017, and he was ranked as the world N0 6 by the end of the year, having started it as the world No 1.<\/p>\n He retired injured in his Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev this January due to a hamstring tear, having pulled out of his 2024 French Open quarter-final due to a meniscus issue.<\/p>\n Djokovic was on a three-match losing streak heading into last fortnight\u2019s Miami Open and, despite an impressive turnaround in form, was beaten by 19-year-old Jakub Mensik in the final.<\/p>\n Former ATP star Simon<\/a> knows better than most about the challenges of facing an in-form Djokovic, having lost 11 of his 12 meetings against the tennis great.<\/p>\n But the 14-time ATP titleist, who retired in 2022, believes the Serbian\u2019s age is starting to prove a factor in his struggles.<\/p>\n Speaking to Tennis365, Simon warned that Djokovic was struggling to consistently handle the physical challenge of competing into his late 30s.<\/p>\n He said: \u201cIf there is one player who knows the way, it\u2019s Novak, but Novak is fighting against something that is difficult and something that you can\u2019t have \u2013 and that\u2019s time.<\/p>\n \u201cTime is only going in one direction and he is working a lot, I\u2019m sure, to be as healthy as possible, because the tennis is not a problem \u2013 it\u2019s just about the body.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why when I said once he would not get 30 Grand Slams. I said if he gets to 25, it\u2019s the maximum. Today, we realise yes \u2013 time has grip on everyone and he is realising it now.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure he realised it before, but he\u2019s feeling it now. We are seeing it even more, but he\u2019s going to have good weeks, and when he has good weeks, he is the player we know he be \u2013 and he can win anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Djokovic\u2019s last title came at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where the 37-year-old stunned gold medal favourite Carlos Alcaraz in the final to claim the one title that had eluded him.<\/p>\n Olympic gold was the Serbian\u2019s main target for 2024 and meant he left the season with a huge positive despite struggles elsewhere, including a shock round-three US Open exit just weeks later.<\/p>\n But, Simon has warned that it will prove an even tougher challenge for the tennis great \u2013 who turns 38 in May \u2013 to ultimately win a historic 25th major.<\/p>\n Exclusive: Jannik Sinner\u2019s rivals warned Italian is \u2018going to play well\u2019 on return from suspension<\/a><\/p>\n Exclusive: Carlos Alcaraz critics told to look at \u2018the big picture\u2019 after \u2018unfair\u2019 criticism<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think it was a huge achievement to win the Olympics last year,\u201d added Simon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t realise it was the main goal of the season and he was ready to have the week he had \u2013 it\u2019s crazy. It says a lot about how strong he is mentally.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, for the Slams, there\u2019s only three left this year and next year he\u2019s going to be one year older.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s see what he\u2019s going to do, but he also needs to be a bit lucky and I think that\u2019s what he maybe starts to understand \u2013 because sometimes he is doing maybe the same preparation as before.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything he can control, he is doing it, but when you get older, some weeks you are trying your best and the body is not responding the way it used to respond.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s going to prepare to be ready for the Slams, obviously what he wants to win is a Slam. Let\u2019s see if he\u2019s going to do it, but it\u2019s five sets, it\u2019s two weeks \u2013 it\u2019s not like the Olympics where it was three sets, one week.\u201d<\/p>\n Simon was speaking in his role as an ambassador and team captain for the 2025 Roland-Garros eSeries by Renault.<\/em><\/p>\n Read Next<\/strong>:\u00a0Exclusive: How Roland-Garros eSeries is bringing tennis to a new audience<\/a><\/p>\n The post Exclusive: Novak Djokovic is \u2018fighting against something difficult\u2019 in milestone title quest<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Novak Djokovic has been warned by former world No 6 Gilles Simon that he is \u201cfighting against something difficult\u201d in his quest to win further Grand Slam and ATP Tour titles. Former world No 1 Djokovic is considered by many to be the greatest male tennis player of all time, with 24 Grand Slam titles […]<\/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-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","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=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Tennis News<\/h2>\n