“I didn’t know if I would be able to play or not”: Djokovic, 39, arrives at Roland-Garros on barely a season
Since his Australian Open final loss in January, the 24-time Grand Slam champion has played exactly two competitions – Indian Wells and Rome – separated by nine weeks of rehabilitation. On his 39th birthday in Paris, he conceded he wasn’t sure he’d be here at all.
Novak Djokovic, Roland-Garros 2026 | © Baptiste Autissier / PsNewz
He had not imagined the day like this. “Not kind of how I imagined my birthday to go,” Novak Djokovic said on Friday afternoon at Roland-Garros, turning 39, on the eve of his 22nd appearance at the tournament and after the thinnest preparation any reasonable observer would consider sufficient for a Slam.
The explanation is quite simple: it was not a matter of motivation, like in 2025. Djokovic was just sidelined. “I wanted to play more, but my body was not allowing me. I was going through rehabilitation process for my injury. So after Indian Wells, it was just not possible for me to compete for several months.”
Since the Australian Open final at the end of January – which he lost in four sets to Carlos Alcaraz, having beaten Jannik Sinner in the semi-final – Djokovic has played exactly two events: Indian Wells in March, where he reached the fourth round before falling to Jack Draper, and Rome two weeks ago, where he lost in his opening match to the 20-year-old qualifier Dino Prizmic.
Rome just to “give it a shot”
Between those two matches: nine weeks. After Indian Wells, a withdrawal from Miami citing a right-shoulder problem, then withdrawals from Monte-Carlo, Madrid, and a decision not to defend his title in Geneva. He didn’t play Hamburg either. He arrived at the Foro Italico with two months of rehabilitation behind him and visible taping on the shoulder. He left after a single set won – he took the first 6-2 against Prizmic, then was visibly unwell in the second, and lost 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.
The Rome appearance, in his own telling, was less a competitive entry than a probationary one. “I really wanted to go to Rome to give it a shot and try and see how I feel. I was far from being ready to compete, but still, I needed at least that one match just to have the score called by chair umpire and have experience of the nerves before I eventually come to Roland-Garros, which at that point I didn’t know if I was going to be able to play or not.”
He says the body has been agreeable in the past ten days, practising at home in Athens and then in Paris. The last fortnight has been “lots of hours spent on the court and trying to perfect the game and the body and enable myself physically and game-wise to be ready for best-of-five. Let’s see. I don’t know whether that’s going to be the case for the entire tournament, however long that tournament will be for me.”
‘If I’m healthy and fresh…”
That cautious framing – “however long that tournament will be for me” – means what it means: for the first time, perhaps, Djokovic will have to take Roland-Garros match by match, with no certainty of reaching the highest stages, where the Brazilian hope João Fonseca looms in the third round and the Rome finalist and clay specialist Casper Ruud is projected for the fourth.
Djokovic denied that the absence of Alcaraz, the man who has beaten him in their last two Slam meetings (the Australian Open final this year, the US Open quarter-final last year), changes anything about his chances. He answered without even citing Sinner’s form. “He’s a two-time defending champion of Roland-Garros. Of course it’s a big blow for the tournament not to have him,” he said.
“Whether that changes my approach to this tournament, I don’t think it does significantly change, to be honest, because I have been through challenging times with my body in the last six to eight months. So that was my primary focus or concern, if I may say, not much really thinking about would I have better chances or not with Carlos being here or not being here.”
“I have proven in Australia”
What he is willing to commit to is the belief that the freshness he needs to maintain across two weeks of best-of-five is something he can still find. “If I’m healthy and I’m able to maintain that level of freshness throughout the tournament – that obviously will not be the same at the beginning like it is towards the end of the tournament, but if I’m able to somehow maintain that level of freshness and progress, then I feel like I have always a very good chance. I have proven that in Australia this year where I was close to win another slam.”
He begins on Sunday against Mpetshi Perricard, then either another Frenchman, Valentin Royer, or a qualifier. “I always try to aim to be at the peak of my own abilities to perform well in Grand Slams. So can’t wait to get on a court and start competing.”
