Health, fitness & emotional fragility: Carlos Alcaraz is still learning to balance life on and off the court

As Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, and the next generation of stars become more difficult to beat, the 37-year-old veteran will have to work even harder in the season to come.

ByJoel Drucker

Published Nov 27, 2024

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Looking back, looking forward. With the 2024 ATP season in the books, Joel Drucker has nine notable storylines to consider over the next few weeks—before the next year of women's tennis begins. (On mobile devices, scroll down to read more ATP takeways; on desktop, you'll see additional entires on the left side of your screen.)

Djokovic is one win away from his 100th career singles title.

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Might 2024 have well been the strangest year of Novak Djokovic’s career?

After having reached all four Grand Slam finals in 2023, only once did he got that far in 2024, a run at Wimbledon that concluded with a straight-set loss to Carlos Alcaraz.

Having won anywhere from two to 11 tournament titles annually for a staggering 18 consecutive years, Djokovic earned but one in the last year. But it was a victory that had incredible personal and collective meaning for Djokovic: At last, at the age of 37, he’d earned Olympic gold, in this case beating Alcaraz, 7-6(3), 7-6(2), in one of the year’s most dazzling matches.

That was Djokovic’s 99th career singles title.

The thinking here is that Djokovic has spent this fall harnessing himself—a combination of rest, reflection, and, per usual, calibrating the best possible series of practice routines. From there, he will make a major effort to excel in Australia at the major where he’s had the most success.