Is record -breaking Djokovic robust enough to keep rolling years ago?

AEvery time Novak Djokovic has participated in a Grand Slam tournament this year, a record has fallen. In New York alone, he became the oldest man in more than three decades to reach the fourth round of the US Open, then he repeated the trick by winning that fourth round competition. Djokovic’s Straight sets victory against Jan Lennard Struff founded the 38-year-old as the oldest man in the open era to reach the quarterfinals of all four Grand Slam tournaments in a calendar year.

The late career performance of Djokovic is unprecedented, but for a player who has won every important trophy, only more large trophies will saturate boundless ambitions. Again, he brought his path back to the late rounds of a Grand Slam tournament full of hope that Fortune will fall his way, allowing him to achieve his greatest achievement: a 25th Grand Slam title.

After his semi-final defeat at Wimbledon, Djokovic chose to use his time between the Grand Slam tournaments to concentrate on his family and himself instead of competing. Rest was predictably visible at Djokovic’s game during his first two rounds, but since his high -quality victory of four set against Cameron Norrie, Djokovic has played himself in good shape. His portion has been mostly spectacular, so that he can play the brand efficient, attacking tennis that is essential for his continuous success.

The question remains whether Djokovic will be physically robust enough due to two debilitating weeks of Best of Five Sets matches to compete at a sufficiently high level against the very best players. In Australia, Djokovic withdrew from his semi -final match against Alexander Zverev because of a hamstring injury. In Wimbledon he was clearly physically hindered in his defeat against Jannik Sinner and later aroused considerable doubts about the ability of his aging body to resist the physical tension of these tournaments.

Although his play level has been moved in the right direction, the first four games of Djokovic have only underline those problems. Almost every victory is accompanied by a kind of physical problem, in which Djokovic calls on the trainer to attend his neck, shoulder, lower back and other problems. He has been candid about his uncertain physical condition.

“I don’t think there is much more that I could do than what I do now, to be honest,” he said. “If the body does not listen to me when I go deep into the Grand Slam tournaments, because it was a bit of the last few slams, then that is difficult to swallow for me, because I know that the amount of hours I do every day to take care of my body, but at the same time you know, biological age is not something that I think you can turn back, and it is.”

The next challenge is important. Djokovic is confronted with Taylor Fritz, the No. 4 Seed and a finalist last year, a player who has made such steady improvements over the years and who will enter Arthur Ashe Stadium, desperately to put together a characteristic victory over his home tournament.

At a time when his colleagues, such as Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Alexander Zverev, all navigate to certain struggles, Fritz continues to stand up quietly and count out as much as possible of his talent. However, this match-up is illustrative of Fritz’s shortcomings, in particular his lack of athletics and variation. Djokovic has a 10-0 record against the American since their first meeting in 2019, with eight starting profits.

Fritz is convinced that most of those early meetings are not relevant in view of the player he has now become: “For me I don’t think in my head to all the losses I had to be Novak when I was, I don’t know, five years ago,” he said. “I was not nearly close to the level of the player that I am now.”

While Fritz watches the most important matches of his career on his physical peak, Djokovic tries in one of the best form of his life and as the higher -ranked player just as long as he can. It is proof of the unprecedented success of the Serbian and a long service life that he still goes to Arthur Ashe Stadium as the player to beat.