Since then he\u2019s had 12 chances to break the record he shares with Australian Margaret Court, reaching two finals and half a dozen other semi-finals.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d been tantalisingly close this year, beating Jannik Sinner on the way to the Australian Open final, where he lost to Carlos Alcaraz.<\/p>\n
He reached the semi-finals at Wimbledon, but Djokovic said he\u2019s battled his body throughout 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been carrying, unfortunately, pretty much every match this year,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, vomiting, throwing up, a serious issue there.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen my whole body, you know, starts to collapse, basically cramping and pain. Yeah, the back just gave up in the end and shoulder, and I couldn\u2019t close it out, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Djokovic said at Wimbledon he wanted to play the grass court classic \u201cat least one more time\u201d.<\/p>\n
He turned back the clock there with an epic win over third seed Felix Auger-Aliassime in the longest Wimbledon quarter-final ever before falling to Sinner in straight sets.<\/p>\n
But Djokovic has shown little of his vintage brilliance in his abbreviated US hardcourt season.<\/p>\n
He was sick and slow in an opening loss in Cincinnati, saying the early exit had given him more time to \u201cget my body and mind into the right state\u201d for Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n
In his diminished physical state he still managed to rally from a set down to seize a two-sets-to-one lead against 49th-ranked Navone before it all became too much.<\/p>\n
Navone, 25, was aware of the magnitude of the moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what can I say more because Novak is the GOAT in this sport. I beat him in US Open, Arthur Ashe, night session.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got up many times so early to see Novak in Australia, to see Novak in French Open, to see Novak in US open and going late before school … it means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since then he\u2019s had 12 chances to break the record he shares with Australian Margaret Court, reaching two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[23600,1869,23598,3603,15823,23602,3352,1874,11569,23603,18488,2465,23604,23605,23601,5860,139,517,23599,12070,2466,23607,2821,23597,23606,2519],"class_list":["post-61446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novak-djokovic","tag-25th","tag-after","tag-brutal","tag-defeat","tag-djokovics","tag-even","tag-exit","tag-firstround","tag-from","tag-further","tag-future","tag-grand","tag-grasp","tag-greats","tag-looks","tag-novak","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-open","tag-recordsetting","tag-serbian","tag-slam","tag-states","tag-title","tag-uncertain","tag-united","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}