We’ll never know if a healthy Novak Djokovic might have given Jannik Sinner a fight in the Wimbledon semifinal on Friday. We’ll never know because Djokovic was not healthy and not moving. We’ll never know because that’s what getting older means.
Friday, Djokovic lost to Sinner 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 in as straightforward a rout as you’ll ever see. Now, Sinner goes on to play Carlos Alcaraz in the final everybody wanted, and Djokovic is left trying to decide if this is the end.
He hurt himself doing a split at the end of his quarterfinal match against Flavio Cobolli and almost certainly would have pulled out of this match — or retired after only a few games — if this was not Wimbledon. The young Djokovic absorbed a lot of criticism for retiring from matches. The legend Djokovic was not going to let that happen, especially if this is his last match at Wimbledon, which I suspect it might be.
Here’s the thing about great athletes getting older: They don’t just forget how to play. Novak Djokovic — and for that matter, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal and Serena Williams and Tiger Woods and LeBron James and Clayton Kershaw — know more about their sport than they ever did.
No, instead, what happens is that their reflexes dull every so slightly, their worlds expand to the point where single-minded passion is harder to achieve, and, more than anything, they get hurt. You could say that it’s bad luck that Djoker got injured in the quarterfinal. You could also say that it’s likely that two weeks of high-level tennis on the Wimbledon grass will lead to an injury for a 38-year-old player at his 20th Wimbledon. Both are true. Djokovic has had to withdraw from two of his last six Grand Slam tournaments.
Novak, when right, is still so good at tennis that he’d be the favorite over every single player on earth but two. Unfortunately, those two are Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who are playing in the Wimbledon final, just like they played in the French Open final. It’s their time now.
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