Rory McIlroy stated at the start of the 2025 season that he had a small number of goals left and they would be his focus. If he could achieve them, he felt he could be entirely satisfied with his golf career, no matter what the haters thought. McIlroy has already achieved the biggest of them by winning the US Masters, with his two other stated aims – winning an Olympic medal and another away Ryder Cup – ones for the future.
Novak Djokovic has already achieved more in the world of tennis than Rory has in golf. The latter is in a group of players just outside the argument about who is the GOAT, whereas the former is quite probably the greatest man to ever play the game of tennis and is, at the very least, involved in that debate. However, there are still certain things the Serb, currently down to sixth in the world rankings, wants to achieve in the game.
He has not made his desires public and, with two more Grand Slams than any other man in history, a cool $188m in career prize money, and a gold medal from the 2024 Olympics, he will undoubtedly be very happy with his career no matter what happens in its twilight years. However, one does not achieve everything he has in the game without the desire for more, and we can be pretty certain that he has, or rather had, two more things on his to-do list.
One of those will be to land another Grand Slam, which aside from scratching the irresistible itch of just wanting “just one more”, would also, crucially, see him move ahead of Margaret Court as the player with the most singles Grand Slams. Court is, of course, a woman, and many of her majors were won before the Open Era but even so, you can bet that Djokovic would love to be the only player to make it to the quarter-century of Grand Slam titles and thus be out in front all on his own.
100 Career Titles
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🇷🇸 Novak Djokovic has won his *100th* career title:https://t.co/GV2Q6UkOy1
— TENNIS (@Tennis) May 24, 2025
The other target the brilliant Serb would have had was to hit triple figures for career titles. He had been positioned on 99 wins since claiming Olympic gold in Paris last summer. That was his only win of the year and so whilst the century seemed inevitable after he won seven times in 2023 – his best return since recording that same tally in 2016 – the longer things went on, the more doubt that would have crept in.
The Belgrade-born superstar recently turned 38 and competing at the highest level that late into life has proved beyond many of tennis’s other legends. His fitness and commitment to conditioning are supreme and, by and large, he has avoided any major injuries. Even so, nobody can escape time and ageing can strike, as Ernest Hemingway said about bankruptcy, slowly, then all at once.
His decline had certainly begun to look more dramatic and more terminal in recent months, with an exit in the third round of the 2024 US Open followed by a semi-final appearance at the Australian Open this year. He won his first singles title way back in 2006 at the Dutch Open. That win came when he was just 19, ranked 36 in the world and, perhaps surprisingly, came on clay. That was almost 20 years ago and his longevity has been outstanding. He now sits third overall in terms of wins in the Open Era, one of just a brilliant trio to reach three figures.
90+ Career Wins
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Just five players have made it as far as 90 career wins in the professional era of men’s tennis. John McEnroe is a fairly distant sixth with 77, behind the following legends of the game.
- Jimmy Connors – 109
- Roger Federer – 103
- Novak Djokovic – 100
- Ivan Lendl – 94
- Rafa Nadal – 92
Obviously, Djokovic is the only player still active and there is at least a chance he will move top of the pile come the end of his career. If he retains the hunger and will to play on in smaller events he could almost certainly make it past Federer and probably Connors too. However, it seems unlikely that is the route he would take, and once he feels he can no longer win the biggest tournaments he will probably retire.
It would be a brave person to write Djokovic off but we feel even matching Federer’s haul of 103 career wins may prove beyond him. We will find out in the coming months though.
The Hard Court Champion
Amazingly Djokovic has won three Grand Slams in a season on four separate occasions. In a further three campaigns he has won two of the big four but only once has he managed to win four Slams in a row. That came in 2015 and 2016 and that period is probably when he was at his very, very best. In those two years, he made seven out of eight finals but it was 2015 in which he was especially dominant.
He won the Australian Open, the US Open and Wimbledon and lost the final of the French Open in Paris. 2015 was also his high point in terms of tournament wins, with him winning 11 times that year. The only other time he hit double figures was in 2011, when he also won the same three majors (and made the semis at Roland-Garros). From 2011 to 2016 inclusive he won at least six times each year, this golden spell accounting for 48% of his overall wins.
You cannot get to 100 wins without being handy on all surfaces, but Djokovic is considered to be at his best on hard courts. It is the surface most commonly used but even so, his 71 victories illustrate just how good he is on that type of court. 21 wins on clay and eight on grass, seven of those at SW19, round out his century.
Capable of winning anywhere, on any surface, his wins have also come against the best of the best in the biggest events. 24% have been Grand Slams, whilst almost half of his total wins (47) have come either at the ATP Finals or in ATP 1000 events. His finals have seen him beat Nadal 15 times, Federer 14, and Andy Murray 11. These last 20 years have been a fantastic time to be a tennis fan, and with those three greats retired, Djokovic is the last flickering flame of a golden era.