Former American tennis star turned commentator James Blake gave tennis fans plenty to talk about when claiming that a 38 year old Novak Djokovic could beat a 28 year old version of the Serbian.
Cliff Drysdale, alongside Blake for the ESPN broadcast of Djokovic’s match against USA’s Zachary Svajda, then provided a supporting stat explaining that both Djokovic’s first and second serve in 2025 are faster than in 2015.
So far this season, Djokovic has failed to win a Major. He lost at the semifinal stage in each of the Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon.
He has also reached the final of only one Masters 1000 event, losing the Miami final to Jakub Mensik in search of a 100th career ATP title. Djokovic’s only title win this season came in Geneva, Switzerland at a 250-level event.
What did the 28 year old version of Djokovic accomplish?
He won three of the four Grand Slams that year, losing only the French Open final. He participated in eight Masters 1000 events, reaching the final of all of them and losing only twice (Canada, Cincinnati). The Serb also won the year-end ATP Finals event that year and was World No. 1 for all 52 weeks of the year.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion went 31-5 against the Top 10 that year as well as 51-1 against everyone else. That combined 82-6 record along with all the tournament wins put his 2015 as arguably the greatest year of all time.
It would take something extraordinary for 2025 Djokovic to beat 2015 Novak.
What Was The Point Blake Was Trying To Make?
The former World No. 4 insinuated that the 38 year old version of Djokovic is better because of how the Serbian has evolved with the game.
Tennis has advanced over the past decade and Blake felt that his experience and know-how at this stage of his career makes him a better player.
What Blake appears to be underestimating is how much weaker, physically, this present day version of Djokovic is relative to the player he was 10 years ago.
Just the fact that a 28 year old Djokovic performed at such a high level for 16 tournaments without injury shows the difference. Today’s Djokovic has played just 10 events this year and suffered injury twice. He retired from his Australian Open semifinal match against Alexander Zverev and was hobbled with an adductor injury against Jannik Sinner in the Wimbledon semis.
He elected not to play either of the Canada or Cincinnati Masters.
Through Djokovic’s opening two matches at the US Open, he has looked rather labored and seemingly lacking match fitness. More than anything, motivation may be lacking now that there really isn’t anything left for him to accomplish.
That’s something you would never say about him when he was 28 years young.
