By Richard Pagliaro | Thursday, October 2, 2025Photo credit score: US Open
Novak Djokovic makes his return to match tennis in Shanghai tomorrow.
Grand Slam king Djokovic, who faces Marin Cilic in his Rolex Shanghai Masters Opener, met the media in the present day and shared his frame of mind forward of his comeback.
The 38-year-old Serbian famous person mentioned seeing his quest for a twenty fifth Grand Slam crown fall brief towards Carlos Alcaraz within the US Open semifinals and Jannik Sinner within the Roland Garros and Wimbledon semifinals is just not ultimate, however he’s not discouraged both.
Djokovic, who may face Sinner once more within the Shanghai semifinals, reiterated his perception that his greatest shot to defeat the New Two is within the best-of-three-set Masters 1000 tournaments.
“I’m nonetheless working my hardest that I presumably can within the circumstances to problem the fellows or to problem myself primarily and actually see how I can do on all of the tournaments that I participate in,” Djokovic mentioned. “In fact, best-of-three, length of the match, ideally seven days, that’s the place I really feel I’ve a greater probability to win a trophy or to make a big end result.
“Aside from these matches that I misplaced to those greatest two gamers on the earth, I feel I performed actually good tennis in Grand Slams and reached semifinals in every one in every of them.
“So it speaks concerning the degree and the consistency and so I’m happy with that. However on the identical time there’s part of me that at all times is a winner, that, , desires to be the perfect. I’ve been lucky to expertise the best factor.”
The proprietor of 100 profession titles is 19-3 in his final 22 Tour-level matches with all three losses coming to the world’s high two.
Djokovic mentioned he’s nonetheless impressed to proceed competing and attempt to flip the tables on Alcaraz and Sinner, who’ve mixed to gather eight straight Grand Slam championships.
“It isn’t ultimate if you actually are taking part in huge matches and also you’re dropping towards presently the perfect gamers on the earth. However however, that’s not discouraging me to maintain going,” Djokovic mentioned. “I don’t play tennis just for the sake of constructing outcomes and profitable trophies, there’s a number of different explanation why I hold going.”
