RIYADH
\nNovak Djokovic has no plans to retire from tennis with the 24-times Grand Slam winner citing NBA great LeBron James, former NFL player Tom Brady and veteran footballer Cristiano Ronaldo as his inspiration to keep playing.
\nThe 38-year-old\u2019s last Grand Slam win came in 2023, but the Serbian shows no signs of slowing down having reached the semis of all four majors this year and is currently ranked number five in the world.
\nDjokovic is in Saudi Arabia where he faces Italian Jannik Sinner on Thursday in the lucrative Six Kings Slam exhibition event for a place in the final against world number one Carlos Alcaraz. \u201cLongevity is one of my biggest motivations. I really want to see how far I can go,\u201d Djokovic said at the Joy Forum in Riyadh.
\n\u201cIf you see across all the global sports, LeBron James, he\u2019s still going strong, he\u2019s 40, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Tom Brady played till he was 40-something years old. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s unbelievable.
\nThey\u2019re inspiring me as well. So I want to keep going and that\u2019s one of the motivations I have.\u201d
\nDjokovic was also eager to be a part of his sport\u2019s evolving future. \u201cI want to also live to see, live meaning still keep on playing professionally, to see the change that is coming for our sport,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cAnd I\u2019m super excited about it. I feel like tennis is a sport that can be greatly, and will be greatly transformed. \u201cI want to be part of that change. I want to be not just part of that change, but I want to be playing when we kind of rejuvenate our sport and set the new platform that is going to go on for decades to come.\u201d
\nDjokovic, who won his 100th career title in Geneva this year, was asked whether the younger players, the likes of Sinner and Alcaraz, will need to beat him into retirement. \u201cI\u2019m sorry to disappoint them, it\u2019s just not happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RIYADH Novak Djokovic has no plans to retire from tennis with the 24-times Grand Slam winner citing NBA great LeBron James, former NFL player Tom Brady and veteran footballer Cristiano Ronaldo as his inspiration to keep playing. The 38-year-old\u2019s last Grand Slam win came in 2023, but the Serbian shows no signs of slowing down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-509311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n