Djokovic's first-round exit signals end of an era as 39-year-old struggles in New York

Novak Djokovic walked off the court at the US Open on Sunday night fighting back tears, and for the first time in two decades, he had nothing left to give. The 39-year-old Serbian lost his opening match 7-6, 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 to Argentina's Mariano Navone—a result that felt less like a setback and more like a threshold crossed. After three years without a Grand Slam title, after a career spent defying the calendar itself, Djokovic faced the rarest of indignities: a first-round exit at a major tournament, his first since 2006.

For nearly two decades, Djokovic has been the exception to every rule about aging in professional sports. When doubters wrote him off in 2018, ranking him outside the top 20 and predicting decline, he responded by winning four of the next five Grand Slams. At Wimbledon this year, he outlasted Felix Auger-Aliassime—14 years younger—in a five-set quarter-final that became the longest in the tournament's history. In Melbourne in January, he mounted a sensational comeback against Jannik Sinner to end the Australian's bid for a third consecutive title. Even as Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz emerged as the sport's new dominant forces, Djokovic kept challenging them, kept reaching semi-finals at majors, kept proving that age was merely a number he could negotiate with.

But the match in New York revealed something different. Over four hours and 36 minutes, Djokovic's body began to fail him in ways that no amount of will could overcome. He vomited. He cramped. He described the sensation as his "whole body starts to collapse." The humidity that had plagued him at Cincinnati in August was largely irrelevant once the roof closed after just seven games—by then, he was already struggling. After the match, he spoke with the flatness of someone confronting a hard truth: "When it comes to the match itself, and the overall feeling of how I felt with my body and playing, it was really not enjoyable."

The loss carries consequences that ripple through the record books. Djokovic's streak of 78 consecutive first-round victories at Grand Slams is finished. His perfect 37-0 record in the first two rounds at the US Open is gone. When the world rankings update, he will drop out of the top 10 for the first time since July 2018—a marker of how far the distance has become. More significantly, for the first time in nearly 24 years, the top 10 will contain neither Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, nor Roger Federer. Nadal retired in 2024 at 38; Federer stepped away at 41 in 2022. All three last won a major at 36. Ken Rosewall, the oldest men's singles champion in the Open era, won the Australian Open in 1972 at 37. Djokovic prevented Federer from breaking that record when he saved two championship points to win Wimbledon in 2019, one month before Federer turned 38. The game has only grown more physically punishing in the 54 years since.

Djokovic's pursuit of a 25th major title—one more than Margaret Court's record of 24—has consumed his focus for three years. He won Olympic gold in Paris last summer, two months after knee surgery and three weeks after losing to Alcaraz at Wimbledon, becoming only the fifth player to complete the career Golden Slam. Since then, he has drastically reduced his schedule, playing just seven tournaments in 2026—four Grand Slams and three Masters events—for a total of 21 matches, his fewest in a season since 2004. Everything has been calibrated toward the majors. Melbourne in January was his best chance, and he came close, leading Alcaraz by a set before fading to a four-set defeat. Early exits followed in Paris and New York.

Djokovic has revealed that he struggles with an ongoing health condition that worsens in hot, humid environments—the kind of physical constraint that neither Federer nor Nadal could overcome in their final years. Yet until now, he had avoided the severe physical deterioration that marked their twilight. He has reached at least the semi-finals eight times in the past 12 majors. The pattern suggested he might still find a way. Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live after the loss, offered a different view: "You can't substitute matchplay. You can't be walking into a Grand Slam on a hot and humid day and expect to get through a five-set match. I know he's super-human in many ways but it's going to catch up with you."

Djokovic has stated his intention to continue competing until the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics—a fitting stage for a farewell, he has suggested, and exactly a decade from when his ability to challenge for the sport's biggest prizes was first seriously questioned. In his recently released documentary, he posed a rhetorical question: "Why would I talk about retirement when I still keep proving to myself that I can still win?" But as of Sunday night, that proof has become harder to find. The era that defined men's tennis for nearly a quarter-century—the era of Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer—has now definitively ended. Whether Djokovic continues or steps away, the question is no longer whether he can win, but whether his body will allow him to.