Novak Djokovic

A professional since 2003, Novak Djokovic’s 20-year career is still in full swing at the age of 38, and he has built up the most prolific list of honours of all time, both for men and women. Some people, starting with Patrick Mouratoglou, consider him to be the greatest player in the history of tennis, the GOAT (Greatest of All-Time), as the saying goes. The Serb has broken virtually every record, including the most prestigious of them all, the number of Grand Slam titles (24), which he held jointly with Margaret Court at the beginning of 2024.

The Serb’s countless accomplishments are all the greater because he achieved them during an incredibly competitive period. He was the great rival of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal for most of his career, the three men commonly creating the ‘Big Three’ label, and pushing each other to the most dizzying records. Djokovic has often said that he owes his high standards to his rivals, who have forced him to find solutions to stay at the highest level.
A resident of Monaco, Novak Djokovic comes to train at least once a year at the Mouratoglou Academy since it was set up in the Alpes-Maritimes.

Junior career: European team champion, first appearance at the Australian Open

Novak Djokovic is a good junior, without being dominant on a circuit where he arrived a little late. As an individual, he won two ITF titles, both in 2002, one in Pancevo (not far from Belgrade) and the other at the Prince Cup in Miami. He only played in three Grand Slams, but made his mark in 2004 at the Australian Open (already…) when he reached the semi-finals, beaten by Frenchman Josselin Ouanna.

ATP career: an unquenchable thirst for victory

Before becoming a longevity phenomenon, Novak Djokovic was a precocious phenomenon in men’s pro tennis. Winner of three Challengers before he came of age, he went on to make a name for himself in his first full-time season on the main circuit, in 2005, with a number of dazzling performances and an uncanny ability to raise his game in big matches against great players. At Roland Garros, for example, he went through a round and then took the first set from Guillermo Coria, the outgoing finalist, before retiring due to physical problems that were still recurring at this stage of his career.
Once these problems were resolved, he became irresistible, starting in 2011. But the Serb didn’t wait that long to become one of the best players in the world – notably by winning his first Grand Slam title at the 2008 Australian Open – and to establish himself as the great rival of the Roger Federer/Rafael Nadal duo, who were crushing world tennis at the time. The rest is history… His victory in the 2010 Davis Cup with Serbia was a turning point.
 

ATP honours: 99 titles, including 24 Grand Slams, 40 Masters 1000 and 7 ATP Finals

With 99 titles to his name, the very first of which came on the clay of Amersfoort in 2006 (at the age of 19), Novak Djokovic is the third most successful player on the ATP circuit after Jimmy Connors (109) and Roger Federer (103). He has the milestone of 100 within his grasp, and another record within his reach.
In the meantime, the Serb holds the record for wins in Grand Slams (24) and Masters 1,000 (40), both ahead of Rafael Nadal, as well as the record for wins in ATP Finals (7), the latter ahead of Fededer. He has won 71 titles on hard courts (outdoor or indoor), 20 on clay and 8 on grass. His most prolific tournaments are the Australian Open (10), Wimbledon and the Rolex Paris Masters (7).

He has beaten… 259 players in the top 10 in his career, notably in epic duels with his great rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, against whom he had the last word in head-to-head matches (27-23 against the Swiss and 31-29 against the Spaniard). In fact, he is the only player to have beaten Federer and Nadal in every Grand Slam tournament, and one of only two players (along with Juan Martin Del Potro) to have managed to beat both of them in the same Grand Slam.
 

His 2012 Australian Open final against Nadal, won in 5:53 (the longest Grand Slam final in history), and his 2019 Wimbledon final against Federer (the first and probably last in history, ending in a super tiebreak at 12-12 in the fifth set) are considered two of the greatest matches of all time.
He also had an exceptional rivalry with his ‘contemporary’ Andy Murray (25-11 for Djokovic), who became his coach for the 2025 season, a few months after ending his own career.

Olympic course: a golden dream in Paris

This is the last major title missing from his legendary list of achievements until 2024. Bronze medallist in Beijing in 2008, but having come away empty-handed from the London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2021 Games, Novak Djokovic had made the Paris 2024 Olympic Games the major objective of his season.

His gamble paid off, with a 2nd round victory over Rafael Nadal (the last duel between the two legends) before a high-flying final against Carlos Alcaraz, who has become his biggest rival following Federer’s retirement and Rafa’s decline.
Novak Djokovic thus became only the second player in history to have won every Grand Slam plus the Olympic gold medal, after Andre Agassi.

His achievements for Serbia include a Davis Cup triumph over France in 2010, following a memorable final in Belgrade, and success in the inaugural ATP Cup in 2020.
 

The first great champion in the history of autonomous Serbia, Novak Djokovic began playing tennis at a dramatic time for his country, which was hit by civil war in the Balkans and then by NATO bombing raids in 1999. But out of the horror came an incredible generation of champions, including Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, who were both world No. 1 in women’s tennis.

During the bombings, the Djokovics took refuge in Kopaonik, a ski resort in southern Serbia, where Novak took up tennis and met Jelena Gencic. Gencic, a renowned coach from the former Yugoslavia, became his mentor and played a key role in developing his mental strength.

From the moment he hit his first balls at the age of 4, in front of a camcorder whose images are still all the rage on social networks, Novak Djokovic knew he would make a career out of it. His personal life has also been marked by the same stability: he became a couple at a very young age with Jelena Ristic, whom he married in July 2014, a few days after a Wimbledon title and three months before the birth of their first child, Stefan. A daughter, Tara, joined the Djokovic family in September 2017. But nothing has altered Novak’s fury for victory.