As Novak Djokovic slipped to another disappointing defeat at the Monte Carlo Masters, the world No 1 was forced to accept a harsh reality.
It was just that Djokovic suffered a first defeat to Casper Ruud as he was beaten in the semi-finals of the Monte Carlo Masters, as this was another big message to the rest of the ATP Tour that the world No 1 is looking vulnerable at last.
No longer is he the ultimate champion who can withstand whatever is thrown at him and instead, there are cracks in the make-up of a player who conceded the last game against Ruud with a string of poor errors, including a double fault when he was match point down.
On a positive note, the Serbian’s run to the semi-finals in Monte Carlo was a welcome boost in activity after an opening to 2024 that has seen the 24-time Grand Slam champion play just 15 matches, including three in the ATP Cup team event in January.
By contrast, world No 2 Jannik Sinner has played 27 matches this season, winning 25 of them and collecting three titles along the way, including the Australian Open.
Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov has played 28 matches this year, winning 22 of them and Norway’s Casper Ruud has played 27.
Playing fewer events is a strategy Djokovic has vowed to pursue as he looks to preserve his jaded sporting limbs as he edges toward his 37th birthday and in recent years, that plan has worked well.
During the period when he was blocked from playing tournaments due to Covid visa issues, he tended to bounce back from long spells away from the court and reaffirm his brilliance by winning tournaments on his return.
Yet his decision not to play in the Miami Open as he opted to spend more time with his wife and children meant he had a long break from his shock defeat against Luca Nardi in Indian Wells in early March and his appearance in Monte Carlo.
There is an expectation that Djokovic may now skip the ATP 1000 Madrid Open tournament later this month and play the Rome Masters as his final warm-up event before the French Open.
However, the evidence of the last few months suggests that this plan is not longer likely to give him the success that has become his norm in what is a vastly changed tennis landscape.
Djokovic will have been shocked to lose to Casper Ruud in the Monte Carlo semi-finals, as he had not dropped a set against the Norwegian in their previous five meetings, but we are no longer surprised when the sport’s ultimate winner slips up.
Even in his victories this season, Djokovic has shown signs of frailty and has missed shots that have been routine for him over the course of his dominant career.
The comments from Rune after his first win against Djokovic may have echoed the feeling of many players in the locker room, as he suggested the opposition are now seeing signs of weakness in the world No 1.
“Obviously Novak is Novak. He’s human. Sometimes he doesn’t seem like it, but he is like everyone else,” said Ruud after his win.
“I think what really motivated me and helped me a bit was maybe that I thought about, you know, he lost a match in Indian Wells to Luca Nardi, and he showed there that he’s also vulnerable sometimes. Not many times in a year, but a few days here and there he’s possible to beat.
“Luckily for me I was able to think about those thoughts at the end of the third set and take advantage of it, believing more in myself that I could beat him now than before because he didn’t have that perfect record so far this year, and that kind of is how tennis works.
“Fine balance. If you see that someone has done really well at the beginning of the year, it’s tough to play them, because you’re expecting, wow, this guy is almost impossible to beat.”
Djokovic’s calm demeanour throughout his matches this season has fueled the belief that his motivation to compete is waning, with his now former coach Goran Ivanisevic confirming his star pupil is no longer inspired to compete in events outside of the Grand Slams.
There have been some suggestions that one of the reasons why Ivanisevic left Djokovic’s team was a disagreement over the lack of tournaments Djokovic was willing to commit to, with his lack of activity clearly impacting his sharpness at this late phase of his career.
The trouble for Djokovic is he does not look ready to compete with Australian Open champion Sinner, Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz, a revived Stefanos Tsitsipas and players of Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev’s quality if he is not ‘match fit’ to face the new threats that are coming his way.
Djokovic’s reservoir of ambition to continue in tennis is clearly waning and spending time with wife Jelena and their young children Stefan and Tara means more than winning tennis matches, yet a harsh reality may come to bite Djokovic when he defends his French Open title and then tries to equal Roger Federer’s record of eight Wimbledon wins this summer.
Djokovic was thriving as a part-time tennis player when he had an aura of invincibility around him every time he showed up at a tournament.
Now that some of his superpowers have been diluted, Djokovic suddenly looks like a scalp the pack want to add to their record before he hangs up his rackets.
He may now need to play more tournaments to give himself a chance to get back to the levels that made him invincible and if he isn’t willing to do that, his era of Grand Slam dominance may well be over.