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In 2008 the Serbian Novak Djokovic became the youngest tennis player to reach the semifinals in all four Grand Slam tournaments, the main in tennis; In 2025 he became the oldest to do it. When he began to get noticed, tennis was dominated by two players, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Now it is more or less the same with Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, and Djokovic is ending his career as he had started, as a third man, as the only credible alternative to Duopoli otherwise almost inscribable. A role in which he says he is perfectly at ease.
For Djokovic the circumstances are however quite different: with Federer and Nadal, now both withdrawn, he was an emerging tennis player who over time succeeded, against the predictions of most experts and enthusiasts, to become better, or at least more winning than both. In fact, he won 24 Tournaments of the Grand Slam, against the 22 of Nadal and the 20 of Federer, and is ahead of direct against both: 31-29 against Nadal, 27-23 against Federer. Today, however, Djokovic is the tennis player elderly who tries to resist the domain of two players who are 14 and 16 years older than him. In both cases, however, it seems the only one to be able to compete with the two best tennis players of the moment.
Djokovic’s is a rather difficult task, because Sinner and Alcaraz practically never lose, if not when they play one against the other: in 2025 Alcaraz won 54 games and lost only 6, Sinner is at 31 wins and 4 defeats. Djokovic has lost the last five games played against Sinner (he does not beat him from the ATP Finals of 2023) while against Alcaraz he won the last two, the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and the final of the Olympics, but lost in the final in Wimbledon in 2023 and 2024.
On Friday at 9 pm Djokovic and Alcaraz face each other in the semifinal at the US Open; The other semifinal is played in the night between Sinner and Felix Auger-Aliassime. It is therefore very likely that to win his twenty -fifth Slam, Djokovic will have to beat Alcaraz and then Sinner first: of the many out of the ordinary things he has done in his career, it would undoubtedly be among the most exceptional.
53 Grand Slam semifinals reached on 80 participations
Djokovic is in a fairly peculiar condition. At least in the Grand Slam tournaments (where the games are played in the best of the five sets) is the third best tennis player in the world, yet it has been two years that he cannot win one. And there are also several doubts that, because of Sinner and Alcaraz, he can never win what his twenty -fifth Slam would be.
Djokovic’s last success was at the Us Open of 2023: the subsequent seven Slam were all won either by Sinner (4) or by Alcaraz (3). “The fact that Djokovic, at 38 years old, with so many kilometers on the legs, is still better put than any other player in the world when it comes to putting Alcaraz and Sinner in difficulty is in itself a significant result”, wrote the Guardian A few months ago. Both at the beginning against Federer and Nadal, and today against Sinner and Alcaraz, Djokovic is the disadvantaged, theunderdogbut in the meantime the way it is perceived has changed.
When he was at the beginning of his career, many fans and enthusiasts saw his rise almost with annoyance, they judged him the third uncomfortable of a rivalry otherwise perfect between the class and elegance of Federer and the strength and intensity of Nadal. In his book on Djokovic released this year for 66thand2nd, Giancarlo Liviano D’Arcangelo presents him as a “Prometheus [colui che secondo la mitologia greca rubò il fuoco agli dei] who built his strength day after day, improving himself in the body and mind to recover ground against the natural qualities of his opponents “, and defines him” the man who challenged the gods (and beat them) “.
Djokovic fell perfectly in that role, became the villain By definition of tennis, the antagonist, and for him the excellence of Federer and Nadal was a stimulus to improve continuously. To this also contributed the way he played: with patience and constancy, exploiting the mistakes of the opponents and dominating the games on the psychological level even before technical, often winning them thanks to almost intangible details.
As Sandro Modeo writes in the book The three. Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and the future of tennis (in which not surprisingly Djokovic comes third) “His entry on the scene – in accordance with his princely nickname, the Djoker – gradually obtains the effect of truly enveloping the contest of the three under the dark sky of Gotham City; In addition, to approach Roger and Rafa to such an extent we do not say Batman & Robin (we do not exaggerate), but still paradoxical allies against him ».
Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Nadal Races 2022
Today is a little different and Djokovic is in what in his newsletter Bounces Ben Rothenberg defined his second “bronze age”, with reference to the material of the medal of third classified. He continues to be very demanding with himself, but the one against Sinner and Alcaraz is a slightly learned clash, for more registry reasons than technical. The other two continue to always improve a little more while Djokovic, even with its exceptional longevity, is no longer what world tennis dominated until three years ago. Also for this reason the public, although eager to see new episodes of the challenge between Sinner and Alcaraz, lives with more empathy and affection the role of third uncomfortable of Djokovic, often making him feel his support.
In the quarterfinals of the US Open Djokovic he beat the number 4 in the world Taylor Fritz in four sets, playing one of his best games this year. After a particularly beautiful point won by Djokovic, the public, while cheering largely for Fritz (who is US), made a kind of standing ovation to the Serbian, something not so common some time ago.
«With an almost overwhelming victory against last year’s finalist Taylor Fritz, Djokovic launched a message to young talents still in the race, including the two players who monopolized the Grand Slam titles who once collected as stamps. He is alive and well, and has no intention of abandoning his chase of the twenty -fifth title of the Grand Slam in silence, “he wrote The Athletic After that game.
Before the Us Open, a journalist had asked Djokovic if there was, among the youngest tennis players, one capable of entering one day in the rivalry between Sinner and Alcaraz; Djokovic had replied that there are some players who will be able to do it, and then he said: «I feel a certain sense of empathy for the third manbecause I was myself with Federer and Nadal. I would like to see a third man arrive ». For the moment the third man is still him.
