Novak Djokovic's urgent proposition to strike Olympic gold

Novak Djokovic is on a glide path into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. With the all-time Grand Slam singles title count in his grasp, he has nothing left to prove to anyone. Or does he?

The one honor that has eluded the Serbian star is a gold medal in the Olympic Games. Hordes of tennis fans pay that no mind, because the game is all about the Grand Slam events, right? But a vastly larger cohort of sports fans believe that the gold standard in any sport is Olympic success. And that belief resonates among Djokovic’s fiercely patriotic compatriots.

Djokovic will remain a national treasure in Serbia no matter what happens in Paris. But when he laces them up at Stade Roland Garros at age 37, there will be a greater urgency to tick that final remaining box on his resume. It’s a big ask, given the ground young rivals, led by Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner (who will miss the Summer Games), have gained on him in the past year.

"In order to really have a chance to beat these guys in Grand Slam or latter stages or the Olympics, I'm going to have to play much better than I did today and feel much better than I did today,” Djokovic said at Wimbledon, following his lopsided final-round loss to Alcaraz. He added to that sober assessment, "[The Olympics are] on a completely different surface obviously, [and I'm] going back to the place where I got injured some weeks ago. . . Let's see.”

If Djokovic sounds like he’s hedging his bet, he has good reason beyond the threat posed by rising stars. His history at the Olympic tournament is a puzzling tale of woe, born of missed opportunities, surprising lapses and apparent miscalculations that Djokovic has rarely experienced to a notable degree anywhere else on tour. The pressure is on, and it will pour in from a host of directions—starting with his own understanding of the situation.

At Wimbledon, defending gold medalist Alexander Zverev said that during a Roland Garros practice session, Italy’s Matteo Berrettini expressed the opinion that the “most difficult trophy” to win was that of the Olympic Games.

“At Grand Slams or other events, we have multiple chances every year to win,” Zverev said. “But if you’re not performing that [Olympic] week, you have to wait four years for another chance ... In terms of expectations and pressure, It is [also] for me one of the biggest trophies, and one of the biggest things in sports.”

The most obvious source of external pressure is the patriotism that drives both the Olympic competitors and the public. Djokovic is a proud, vocal patriot as well as an international celebrity. Eyes will be on him to bring another medal home to a nation that has won a grand total of 24 medals (six gold) in the Summer Games—the same number as Morocco, and hundreds fewer than nearby Poland, or Romania.

“I sense it's way more important for him [Djokovic] than any other tournament other than Wimbledon and the US Open,” Brad Gilbert, the coach of Coco Gauff—and an Olympic bronze medalist in singles—told me. “Yes, I think he's incredibly patriotic. He plays Davis Cup. He plays Nation's Cup. The Olympics mean a lot to him. And the Olympics mean a lot to their country in every sport. Because they're a small population, it matters a lot.”

In order to really have a chance to beat these guys in Grand Slam or latter stages or the Olympics, I'm going to have to play much better than I did today and feel much better than I did today. Novak Djokovic, after finishing runner-up to Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon

Djokovic’s struggles at the Games aren’t easily explained, but in some ways they are typical. After all, Roger Federer never claimed gold in singles (though he did win gold in doubles, and a silver in singles). Furthermore, the list of male Olympic champions is apt to leave even a serious tennis fan scratching their head. Since 1992, that roll of gold medalists includes Marc Rosset, Nicolas Massu and Zverev—none of whom have won a Grand Slam title.

Djokovic’s best Olympic performance was his first: In Beijing in 2008, he defeated James Blake to claim the bronze. Although he was already ranked No. 3 at the time, he had yet to win his second major. He seemed destined to strike gold by the time the 2012 Games arrived, having won four of the five most recent majors.

Djokovic was Serbia’s flag-bearer that year, but he was knocked out of the singles by Andy Murray, and then took a loss to Juan Martin del Potro in the bronze-medal match. It proved to be a turning point in Djokovic’s progress toward gold, but in a downward direction. In the next Olympic meeting, in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro, del Potro beat Djokovic again—this time in the first round.

Due to the Covid pandemic, the next Olympic Games, held in 2021 in Tokyo, were contested with spectators barred from the venues. It is probably the most mystifying of Djokovic’s Olympic campaigns. He came in as champion of the three majors already in the books that year, primed to complete a career-defining calendar-year Grand Slam.

Djokovic had by then demonstrated that he was capable of realizing outsized ambitions, but he appeared to underestimate the degree of difficulty entailed in the Olympic format—a template that heavily taxes competitors in more than one discipline. True, Olympic matches are best-of-three sets, but there is pressure on top players to harvest medals for their homelands. So they uncharacteristically enter the doubles or mixed doubles, even though the tournament is compressed into just nine days.

The tennis event was already underway in the brutal heat in Tokyo when Djokovic decided to enter the mixed doubles with little-known Nina Stojanovic. Doubles and mixed doubles is usually a lark for quality players, but in the Olympics the competition is no less fierce than in singles. The aura of gold obscures the details of how it was obtained.

Consequently, Djokovic found himself battling through a total of 16 sets over the course of seven matches in just four days. He sputtered and eventually stalled, taking three losses in two days. It began with Zverev’s stunning upset of Djokovic in the singles semifinals that the favorite seemed to have locked up.

Then a dispirited and fatigued Djokovic lost to Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta with bronze on the line. In the wake of that loss, Djokovic pulled out of the mixed doubles to take a loss by walkover. He told reporters that he was suffering from exhaustion and “unbelievable” pain, and he apologized publicly to Stojanovic for abandoning their quest.

So here we are again, wondering what could go wrong—or right, finally—this time around. Djokovic has already demonstrated that he has nothing to prove to anyone. Although he’s been playing with house money, he’s so competitive that you’d think the cake was his own life savings. Djokovic’s ambitions may yet trump his age and failure to have cracked the Olympic code.

"I'm going to work on it," Djokovic said of his unsatisfying level of play at Wimbledon. He added that he has faced comparable obstacles more than once in the past. “I've had so many different experiences throughout my career. In the face of adversity, normally I rise and I learn and get stronger.”

Djokovic’s frustrated quest for Olympic gold has been educational, but the time to put all of his knowledge to good use is running out.