When you have accomplished every tennis goal you have set for yourself, it is sometimes very hard to remain motivated.  The last goal that was motivating Djokovic was winning the French Open, once he accomplished that it seemed that the fire in his belly died.  He has no more to prove and no more to accomplish; his legacy will live on in the International Tennis Hall of Fame even if he were to retire today.  If you no longer find joy in what you do daily, perhaps you need to rediscover that joy or call it quits.

He is content now.  Happily married with a family, he wants to spend his days enjoying family life, not running around on the tennis court practicing hour after hour. It’s not that he no longer loves tennis, rather, his passionate drive to accomplish the ultimate goals of any tennis player have been fulfilled and finding that extra something to keep going now seems futile.  It’s not difficult to understand, he is conflicted out there on the court, and that small degree of distraction is enough to make him vulnerable to other players.

It is not unexpected, it is quite normal to see the top guys losing their drive.  I have seen it before in others and although Djokovic is still relatively young in tennis years, he too is suffering from the same syndrome.  The one thing tennis fans can count on is there is always going to be a changing of the guards.  No one reigns forever and although it may be premature to say so, perhaps Djokovic has simply had enough. Yet, we also know that there is always that one last push before they hang things up, so perhaps Djokovic will give us that one last push before he calls it quits.

SOURCE OF IMAGE: Creative Commons