Novak Djokovic’s US Open ended before most fans in New York had settled into the late shift on Monday morning. The 24-time major champion lost 7-6, 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 to Mariano Navone, a claycourt specialist ranked 49th in the world.
It was Djokovic’s first opening-round loss at a Grand Slam since 2006, and his first ever at Flushing Meadows. The defeat snapped a run of 78 consecutive first-round wins at majors, a streak few players will ever threaten. It also forced a question tennis has circled for two years: how much longer can this body carry a game built to last forever.
Djokovic trailed 3-1 in the fifth set when the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd rose to salute him anyway. The ovation brought him to tears, the same reaction New York gave him five years ago against Daniil Medvedev. Back then he was three sets from a calendar Grand Slam. On Monday he was losing to a player he would usually beat with room to spare.
Djokovic did not hide his frustration afterward. “I didn’t enjoy myself. I think it was obvious that it was an awful feeling on the court for me,” he said. “It’s something that I’ve been carrying, unfortunately, pretty much every match this year. Vomiting, throwing up, a serious issue there.”
The Body That Finally Said No
This has been building all year, and the pattern is now impossible to miss. Djokovic reached the Australian Open final in January. Getting there took a five-set escape from Jannik Sinner in the semifinal, one of the best performances of his career. He arrived at that final already running on fumes and lost to Carlos Alcaraz in four sets.
Three months later he was vomiting and cramping again during a five-set third-round exit at the French Open against a rising João Fonseca. Wimbledon brought a more prepared Djokovic physically, but the tank was empty by his semifinal against Sinner. Two months after that, humid conditions beat him in the second round in Cincinnati. New York was simply the next domino.
None of this is really about one bad tournament. It’s about a 39-year-old whose game was always built on physical dominance, not economy of movement. Djokovic won matches for two decades by outlasting people, by turning five-set wars into attrition tests he simply won more often. That model requires a body willing to cooperate, and his stopped cooperating months ago.
Where He Still Stands in the GOAT Argument
None of this erases what Djokovic has already built. He holds the men’s record with 24 Grand Slam singles titles, two more than Rafael Nadal and four more than Roger Federer. He also holds the ATP record for weeks at world number one, a mark that sits at 428 and counting. He completed the career Golden Slam in 2024, winning Olympic singles gold in Paris after already owning every major title available. Head-to-head, he holds the edge over both rivals who defined his era alongside him.
| Player | Grand Slam titles | Weeks at No. 1 | Head-to-head vs Djokovic | Olympic singles gold |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Novak Djokovic | 24 | 428 | N/A | 2024 (Paris) |
| Rafael Nadal | 22 | 209 | Djokovic leads 31-29 | 2008 (Beijing) |
| Roger Federer | 20 | 310 | Djokovic leads 27-23 | None (silver, 2012) |
The numbers still tilt in Djokovic’s favor, and they will not move backward. But the GOAT debate was never only about column totals. It also asks who a player was at his best, and for two years now Djokovic has rarely been at his best.
The Road to Los Angeles
Djokovic has pointed to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics as his last big target, a chance to defend the gold he won in Paris. He will be 41 by the time the Games open, an age no man has approached this level of competition at before. Keeping his body together for two more years looks like the hardest opponent he has left.
For now, Djokovic says he is still deciding whether Monday’s defeat changes anything. He has evaded questions about retirement all year, and he did it again in New York. What is clear is that the version of Djokovic who won 24 majors by outlasting everyone is no longer available to him. Whatever comes next in his career will have to be won a different way, or not won at all.
Lucas Hughes covers bonuses, promotions and payments for Canadian casino and sportsbook players. He reads the terms before he writes about an offer: rollover, game weighting, maximum bets, expiry dates and the conditions that quietly void a bonus. He also tracks how deposits and withdrawals behave in practice — Interac, cards, e-wallets and crypto — and prefers a clear account of the trade-offs to a headline number.