{"id":907,"date":"2025-08-22T17:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T17:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=907"},"modified":"2025-08-22T17:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T17:30:08","slug":"grand-slam-champion-warns-novak-djokovic-he-needs-help-to-challenge-for-us-open-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=907","title":{"rendered":"Grand Slam champion warns Novak Djokovic he needs \u2018help\u2019 to challenge for US Open title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Novak Djokovic is set to embark on his latest attempt to win a 25th Grand Slam title at the US Open, but former world No 1 Mats Wilander admits he may need some assistance if he is to get over the line in New York.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/novak-djokovic\">Djokovic<\/a> won the last of his record-breaking 24 Grand Slam titles at the 2023 US Open, as he drew level with women\u2019s tennis great Margaret Court for the most major title wins.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/jannik-sinner\">Jannik Sinner<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tag\/carlos-alcaraz\">Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> have shared the seven Grand Slam titles since then, shutting out Djokovic in his bid to win the major that would ensure he finishes his career as the most successful tennis player of all-time.<\/p>\n<p>The 38-year-old has reached the semi-finals of all three Grand Slam tournaments in 2025, which suggests he is still a contender for the biggest prizes in tennis, but he has struggled to maintain his fitness over the course of a long two-week event played over best-of-five-set matches.<\/p>\n<p>The Serbian was forced to pull out of his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/wimbledon\/alexander-zverev-novak-djokovic-hate-wimbledon\">Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev in January<\/a> due to injury and he was also hampered in his Wimbledon semi-final against Jannik Sinner by a fitness issue.<\/p>\n<h2>More Tennis News<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/highest-paid-tennis-players-last-12-months-carlos-alcaraz-jannik-sinner-coco-gauff-novak-djokovic\">The 10 highest-paid tennis players in the last 12 months: Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Coco Gauff star<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/tennis-news\/novak-djokovic-injury-fears-us-open-2025-practice-video\">Novak Djokovic sparks US Open injury doubts as practice video emerges<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now Wilander has suggested that Djokovic needs ill-fortune to befall Sinner or Alcaraz to give him a chance of success at this year\u2019s US Open.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLooking at the last matches that he\u2019s played against Sinner and Alcaraz, I think he may need some help to win that 25th Grand Slam,\u201d said Wilander, as he prepares to join the Eurosport broadcasting team at the US Open.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we need something to happen to them, to at least one of them, because to beat Sinner, and then to beat Alcaraz and having to beat someone like Jack Draper maybe before\u2026 that\u2019s tough for any player, even if your name is Novak Djokovic. So I do think that he does need a little bit of help from the other guys.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe doesn\u2019t need much, but he needs a little help to take out one of the big two.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-201967\" class=\"wp-image-201967 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/d2me2qg8dfiw8u.cloudfront.net\/content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Mats.jpg\" alt=\"Mats Wilander\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" \/>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mats Wilander is part of the Eurosport commentary team<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Wilander insists this is not the moment to write off Djokovic, even though the former world No 1 appears to have lost the magic that made him invincible for so long.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would not count him out yet,\u201d added Wilander. \u201cI thought he had a chance to win another Grand Slam in 2025 and Wimbledon looked like his best chance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan he beat Sinner on a hard court when he is looking like he might be one of the best hard court players of all-time? I don\u2019t know, but you can never write off a great like Novak.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have not written him off, but it\u2019s getting tougher than ever for him. He needs to beat four players in a row to win a Grand Slam and they might all be really tough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s the big problem. It\u2019s not the level he is at. It\u2019s trying to bounce back from winning match after match. That\u2019s tough at any age and especially at his age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Djokovic will start his US Open campaign against world No 48 Learner Tien, in a match that will test the veteran to the full in what will be his first competitive match since the Wimbledon semi-finals over a month ago.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Watch the US Open on Eurosport and HBO Max<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>READ NEXT: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/us-open\/emma-raducanu-novak-djokovic-practice-partners-us-open\">Emma Raducanu and Novak Djokovic pick intriguing practice partners ahead of US Open<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/us-open\/novak-djokovic-usopen-hopes-mats-wilander\">Grand Slam champion warns Novak Djokovic he needs \u2018help\u2019 to challenge for US Open title<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis365.com\/\">Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Novak Djokovic is set to embark on his latest attempt to win a 25th Grand Slam title at the US Open, but former world No 1 Mats Wilander admits he may need some assistance if he is to get over the line in New York. Djokovic won the last of his record-breaking 24 Grand Slam [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","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=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}