Failing to win another Australian Open injured just makes Novak Djokovic a little more mortal

“Injury is the biggest enemy of a professional athlete,” Novak Djokovic said after retiring from his Australian Open semifinal with Alexander Zverev.

Djokovic is surely right—except that, in his own case, it hasn’t always been true. Twice before at the Australian Open, in 2021 and 2023, he found a way to win the title there while carrying an injury through much of the fortnight.

“A few years ago, that to some extent even helped me play better and win the tournament,” he said on Friday.

But that was a few years ago. Now it’s 2025, Djokovic will turn 38 in May, and it has been 16 months since he won a Grand Slam title. In his quarterfinal with Carlos Alcaraz, he tore a muscle in his groin area. Painkillers got him through it, but they couldn’t get him past the first set of his semifinal. After laboring around the court for an hour and 20 minutes, he missed an easy volley to give Zverev the opening set, and immediately walked over to shake hands.

Read more: Novak Djokovic says injury felt “worse and worse” during AO semifinal against Zverev

“I did everything I possibly can to basically manage the muscle tear that I had,” said Djokovic, who didn’t “hit a ball” until an hour before the match.

“Medications and the strap, and the physio work helped to some extent today. But towards the end of that first set I just started feeling more and more pain. It was, yeah, too much, I guess, to handle for me at the moment.”

Every great athlete has a period of decline, and we can probably look at this retirement as another milestone in Djokovic’s slow slide down the tennis mountain. No longer could his body withstand an injury and still make it through the stresses of major-tournament tennis. The fact that he could do that in the first place is remarkable, and a sign of how fit he was, and how much better he was on the courts in Melbourne than anyone else, even into his 30s.

Failing to win a Slam when he was injured hardly means that Djokovic’s career is over. It just means he’s a little more like everyone else now, a little more mortal than he was two days ago.

“I actually thought I played really well, as well as I played the last 12 months,” Djokovic said of his overall performance at this tournament. “I liked my chances [against Zverev] if I was fit and ready to battle.”

So it came as something of a surprise to me that, two answers later, Djokovic wouldn’t commit to be being back here 12 months from now.

Asked if there was a chance that this might be his last Australian Open, he said:

“I don’t know. There is a chance. Who knows? I’ll just have to see how the season goes. I want to keep going. But whether I’m going to have a revised schedule or not for the next year, I’m not sure.

“I normally like to come to Australia to play. I’ve had the biggest success in my career here. So if I’m fit, healthy, motivated, I don’t see a reason why I wouldn’t come. But there’s always a chance, yeah.”

It sounds as if Djokovic isn’t sure how much this injury will change his plans for 2025, and how he’ll feel by the end of the season. A few years ago, he wouldn’t have said something like that, or entertained the idea that an injury could lead to his retirement. But it’s a realistic position for someone his age.

It’s also a realistic position for the last of the Big 3 to take. In recent years, Djokovic has watched as his two great rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, have slowly but surely been driven from the tour by injuries.

I liked my chances [against Zverev] if I was fit and ready to battle. Novak Djokovic on the state of his game

At a certain age, one issue tends to lead to another, the recovery efforts get harder and harder, and the frustration at not being able to play at full strength only rises. That process may have begun for Djokovic as well. Last year, a knee injury ended his bid at Roland Garros, and kept him from playing his best at Wimbledon. Now a muscle tear has ended his Australian Open.

“It’s not like I’m worrying approaching every Grand Slam now whether I’m going to get injured or not, but statistics are against me in a way in the last couple of years,” Djokovic admitted.

A year ago, I would have bet that Djokovic would find a way to win Grand Slam No. 25 and walk away with the all-time record. Now it’s a riskier bet, and the possibility of him being frustrated in that attempt, the way Serena Williams was frustrated in her many attempts to get to 24, loom larger.

Yet for all of his realism, Djokovic says he’s not throwing in the towel.

“I’ll keep going,” he says. “You know, I’ll keep striving to win more Slams. And as long as I feel that I want to put up with all of this, I’ll be around.”