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. 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.)
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.Although setting records so soon in his career, the Spaniard has plenty of reflection to do looking ahead into the 2025 season
Win one Slam singles and it’s a great year. Win two and it’s magnificent. Such was the case for Carlos Alcaraz in 2024 – even though he ended the year ranked third.
The dazzling Spaniard’s title runs at Roland Garros and Wimbledon made him the youngest man in tennis history to earn the clay-grass double. Recall that at Roland Garros in ’23, Alcaraz left the court exhausted while losing in the semis to Novak Djokovic.
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