Novak Djokovic embraces the joy of agony

The human body is programmed to wither. As it ages, it loses efficiency.

But athletes have a cheat code. They nurture their bodies, condition them for competition and protect them from the assault of the daily grind with single-minded determination. Still, mother time chips away, relentlessly convincing the mind that the finish line is here.

Novak Djokovic finds himself at this intersection of his storied career. He has a permanent place in the highest echelons of tennis’s history. But he is 38 and hasn’t lifted a major title in two years. He is unlikely to be No. 1 again.

After his latest evisceration at the hands of Carlos Alcaraz in the US Open semi-final, Djokovic conceded the gap between him and the top two on the circuit is all but impossible to bridge. It will take a minor miracle for the 24 slams he owns to tick over to 25, but when the definitive record of his journey is tabulated, the final tally would be imposing enough either way.

“I learned during all my career to enjoy suffering,” Rafael Nadal, Djokovic’s fiercest rival, mused when asked to reflect on his legacy.

Watch the Serbian giant in action these days, and there is an unmistakable sense that he is driven by a similar dictum. Djokovic isn’t squeezing the last ounces of tennis out of himself in pursuit of glory or the intoxicating feeling of another trophy — he has plenty of those.

Instead, he appears to be on a journey to discover how much torture his body can withstand. As he stands across court to much younger men, Djokovic digs dee p, dee per than he ever has, only so he can silence the voice in his head that whispers — “Hey, why are you bothering with this? You could so easily have been at your daughter’s birthday instead!”

Against American Taylor Fritz, ranked three spots higher and aged eleven years younger, Djokovic conceded the third set after taking the first two in their quarterfinal the other night. A raucous home crowd sensed the momentum shift. Fritz found the bounce again in his step. Djokovic gasped, gobbling up all the oxygen he could. And then, renewed acquaintance with his new friend: suffering.

In that moment, Djokovic wasn’t the best version of himself, and he could sense he was the one being hunted in the arena. The exit door was right there, with a comfortable chair and a warm hug as consolation on the other side of it.

Instead, Djokovic chose to spit the blood out, pull himself up from the ropes and embrace the agony.

“I was just trying to survive, just trying to stay in the rallies, make him play,” he reflected 10 games later, having come through another gut-wrenching examination.

Fritz, frustrated at having gone down in an encounter where he lost just four fewer points, (126-130), spluttered he was second best in the moments that mattered. “At the end of the day, that’s one of the things that makes the great players great,” he mumbled. “They win the big points.”

However, the classification of this version of Djokovic as “great” isn’t close to adequate. Winning the “big points” isn’t all he does. He steps onto court actively seeking the suffering his profession demands of him. As weariness seeps in, the mind cracks opens a little door for the devil of doubt within to perch on his shoulder. It is this duel that he truly wins, one that remains uncaptured by the score-line.

One day soon, he will have to pull the plug. The curtains will come down. And in quiet self-reflection, Djokovic will pat himself on the back. Not only for all he accomplished for the world to admire, but for all he endured to simply carry on. For that one extra point, set, match and tournament.