Novak Djokovic looked human on Sunday night, and it might have been the most jarring thing tennis fans have seen in a decade.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion lost to Argentina’s Mariano Navone 7-6, 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 in a four-hour, 36-minute grind at Arthur Ashe Stadium. It was Djokovic’s first-ever US Open first-round exit and his earliest Grand Slam loss since the 2006 Australian Open.
Djokovic threw up three times during the match. He needed multiple medical timeouts for back pain, an inhaler, and pills to get through the fourth and fifth sets. He broke down in tears in the decider as the crowd tried to pull him through it.
Afterward he did not sugarcoat any of it.
“I have,” he said when asked if he had considered quitting mid-match. “I have.”
He described the physical struggle in stark terms. “My whole body starts to collapse, cramping and pain.” He said he has been throwing up in most of his matches this year.
That is not tennis. That is a body telling a 38-year-old it is done being asked to do this every two weeks.
Djokovic did not announce retirement. He rarely tips his hand. But he did not fight the questions either, and that alone is a change from the Novak of five years ago, who would have staged a press conference just to remind everyone he was going to win Wimbledon again.
The math is starting to catch up to him. He is one Grand Slam behind the 25 mark. He built his career around chasing history, and now he is chasing his own body just to stay on the court. Cincinnati was a first-round loss. Wimbledon ended in the semis. The Australian Open produced a physical collapse in the final. New York was worse than any of it.
Andy Roddick used his platform to tell people asking about retirement to “shut up.” That is fair for a fellow legend to say. It is also not a real answer. Djokovic has more Slams left in him only if his body cooperates, and right now his body is not cooperating.
The Australian Open sits in January. That has always been his best surface, his home crowd of sorts, and the tournament where he still holds the record with 10 titles. If he shows up healthy in Melbourne and makes another final, everyone will forget this US Open weekend.
If he shows up looking like he did against Navone, the retirement talk stops being speculation. Djokovic will not fake it. He will not slog through six more months to sell shoes. When his body tells him the run is over, he will listen.
Sunday sounded a lot like the body starting to talk.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
