Novak Djokovic: The Ruthless Competitor and Generous Mentor
Novak Djokovic has never lived in the grey area. You love him, or you don’t. You cheer his comebacks, or you replay his controversies. Deportation from Australia, that default at the 2020 US Open – his story has always been written in capital letters.
Behind the curtain, though, the picture looks very different.
The mentor most fans never see
Carlos Costa, Djokovic’s physio, sees the side that rarely makes it into the debate shows. Speaking on “A BOLA”, he painted a portrait of a 24-time Grand Slam champion who keeps interrupting his own work to improve everyone else’s.
“He loves helping younger players,” Costa explained. Djokovic will literally stop his own training block to talk to a kid on the next court. Not just any kid, either – sometimes the very players trying to take his place at the top.
Felix Auger-Aliassime asked him for advice recently. Djokovic didn’t hesitate. Same with Joao Fonseca. Different generations, different stages of their careers, same response from the Serb: time, attention, detail.
Both have faced him this season. Both have pushed him to five sets on the biggest stages in the sport.
At Wimbledon, Djokovic outlasted Auger-Aliassime in a quarter-final epic: 7-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-7, 7-6. A classic Centre Court grind, the veteran edging the younger man by a whisker.
At Roland Garros, the script flipped. Fonseca, fearless and relentless, dragged Djokovic into a five-set war and sent him out in the third round: 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, 7-5. The kind of defeat that usually draws talk of decline, not mentorship.
Yet Costa’s point is clear: Djokovic doesn’t reserve his advice for practice partners or countrymen. He has also taken time with American prospect Iva Jovic, speaking to her on several occasions. Different tours, different paths, same curiosity from the players, same openness from him.
You can argue about his popularity. You can’t argue he’s hoarding his knowledge.
A ruthless competitor obsessed with details
If Djokovic is generous with others, he is ruthless with himself.
“I have never seen anything like Novak Djokovic,” Costa said. “His vision, what he puts in every single day on the court, and his intensity.”
This is not the standard praise that follows every great champion. Costa went into the nuts and bolts. Djokovic tracks everything: how long it takes to hand him a towel, how strictly the routine is followed, how precisely each recovery step is executed. If something slips out of the plan, tension rises. He wants friction if standards drop.
Inside his team, he even sets tests. Not for fun, but to see whether his staff are really chasing the best recovery methods and treatments, or just repeating what worked yesterday.
One example stuck with Costa. Djokovic asked why Jannik Sinner was doing eye-training work and they were not. Simple question, sharp edge. Why is the man currently beating me doing something we’re not?
He sees a video. He spots a drill in a locker room. He notices a rival’s routine. Immediately, he wants to know: why aren’t we doing this, or why are we doing it differently? And the answer, Costa says, “can’t take too long”. The clock is always ticking in Djokovic’s head.
Costa himself tries to keep pace, taking courses with physiotherapists from other sports, borrowing ideas, updating methods. Even then, Djokovic often gets there first, noticing something new on tour and dragging the team to the next tweak, the next marginal gain.
Watching Sinner, chasing 25
No wonder Sinner sits so firmly in Djokovic’s sights.
The Italian is now world number one, the standard-bearer of the new era. Since Djokovic’s last major title, Sinner has collected five Grand Slams of his own. He leads their head-to-head 7–5 and beat Djokovic comfortably on the grass at Wimbledon this year.
That stings. It also fuels him.
For Djokovic to climb back to the top of men’s tennis and claim that elusive 25th Grand Slam, he knows he can’t win on aura alone. Not against a player like Sinner, not in a locker room full of fearless 20-somethings who grew up studying his dominance, not fearing it.
So he studies them back. He watches their training methods. He questions his own. He pushes his team harder. He mentors the very players who want to dethrone him, then goes home and looks for ways to stop them doing it again.
Next up is Beijing, his first appearance since the US Open, with the China Open beginning on Monday, September 28. A new tournament, a familiar question.
How much longer can a man who gives so much to others keep finding new ways to stay ahead of them?
