Former world No 9 Andrea Petkovic has proclaimed that it is Novak Djokovic\u2019s \u201cdestiny\u201d to be \u201cthe third wheel\u201d after Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n
Sinner<\/a> and Alcaraz<\/a> have won the last seven Grand Slam titles between them, with the Italian securing four and the Spaniard claiming three.<\/p>\n Djokovic<\/a> was the last man outside of Sinner and Alcaraz to win a major, having collected a record-extending 24th Slam at the 2023 US Open.<\/p>\n Since the start of 2024, Djokovic has reached the semi-finals at five of the seven Grand Slam tournaments, including all three in 2025.<\/p>\n Four of the 38-year-old Serbian\u2019s six major defeats in this period have come against Sinner or Alcaraz (he pulled out of the 2024 French Open through injury).<\/p>\n Speaking on her and Boris Becker\u2019s podcast, Petkovic compared Djokovic\u2019s current status to the position he was in with\u00a0Roger Federer and\u00a0Rafael Nadal early in his career.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was with Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, and now he\u2019s with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner,\u201d said the German.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad we have him, but he\u2019s no longer a favourite. It was his initial destiny in tennis to be number three, then there were years when he was number one.<\/p>\n Novak Djokovic told breaking Margaret Court\u2019s Grand Slam record is \u2018a false target\u2019<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Novak Djokovic\u2019s ex-coach makes telling \u2018another level\u2019 comment in warning to the Serb<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNow, towards the end of his career, it\u2019s his destiny again to be the third wheel. What did he do wrong to be the third wheel again?<\/p>\n \u201cIt must be said that he played three Grand Slam semi-finals in 2025. He\u2019s clearly better than the rest of the field in big matches. But against those two (Alcaraz and Sinner), it\u2019s not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n In February, Petkovic weighed in on Djokovic after injury forced him retire in his Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev after a quarter-final win against Alcaraz.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not worried about Novak, I thought he played so well at the Australian Open \u2014 that match against Carlos (Alcaraz),\u201d Petkovic told\u00a0Tennis Channel\u2019s Inside-In podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people wanted to put this one on Carlos, I just thought he was outplayed by Novak. I didn\u2019t think he (Alcaraz) played so badly and so I\u2019m not worried about Novak at all in terms of tennis, just worried about his health and if he\u2019s healthy, he will be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n During the Australian Open in January, Petkovic marvelled at Djokovic\u2019s performances and vowed never to doubt the former world No 1 again.<\/p>\n \u201cWhoever doubts Novak\u2019s tennis ever again, whether Novak\u2019s 37 years old or 55 years old, should from this day forth be punished with perpetual silence. Yes, I\u2019m talking about myself,\u201d she wrote on her blog on Substack.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that I ever doubted the quality of tennis necessarily, it\u2019s just that I couldn\u2019t quite believe he would be able to retain enough explosiveness to hang with the young guys.<\/p>\n \u201cNovak still has it and I would argue for three matches (Machac, Lehecka and Alcaraz), he played better than ever.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was still the same consistent percentage player who never misses, but conscious of his age, he hit the ball bigger and changed directions more frequently, yet still undetectable for the opposing side.\u201d<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0The 7 men with the highest Canadian Open win percentage: Djokovic 4th, Nadal 82.61%<\/a> The post Novak Djokovic given brutal \u2018third wheel\u2019 verdict in Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz comparison<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former world No 9 Andrea Petkovic has proclaimed that it is Novak Djokovic\u2019s \u201cdestiny\u201d to be \u201cthe third wheel\u201d after Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Sinner and Alcaraz have won the last seven Grand Slam titles between them, with the Italian securing four and the Spaniard claiming three. Djokovic was the last man outside of […]<\/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-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","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=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Novak Djokovic News<\/h2>\n
What else has Petkovic said about Djokovic?<\/h2>\n
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