"It also feels a bit lonely and you feel like you are a hunted one" - Years as world number one made Novak Djokovic 'lonely' as he reminisces over decorated career

24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic has opened up in a Q&A with ATPTour.com, as he shared his wisdom and knowledge with the younger generation, the best match he has competed in and his ongoing rivalry with Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.

24 majors, 428 weeks as world number one and 100 ATP titles. It has been some career for the 38-year-old, who ready to pass his advice down to the next generation.

"First of all, it’s important to believe in your dreams, to not let anybody take away your dreams and your hopes," Djokovic said. "I think children are so good at imagination and [creativity] and just visualising themselves — whether it’s sports or any other area of life — to be accomplished or to be someone or to do something. So we just have to allow them to fly with their wings and not really cut them. Just allow them to be who they are, because imagination is incredible with children."

Djokovic has two children, with fatherhood being a big part of his life. He has learnt a lot from his Son, Stefan, and daughter, Tara, with him disclosing his greatest lesson.

"The greatest lesson of being a father is being present and not multi-tasking while you are with children, because they demand your full attention on whatever you are doing, whether you are playing with them or doing something else," Djokovic said. "You always have to be in that moment. I think that’s what kids teach us the most, really: to be forgiving, to move on and to be present."

The Serbian has quite a few matches to choose from. However, Djokivic pinpointed two Grand Slam finals against his greatest rivals, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. It was two five-set titanic battles, with Djokovic coming out on top in a brace of memorable classics. Despite this, he picked out another clash against Nadal which topped his list.

"The best match I was ever part of would be the final of the Australian Open in 2012 against Nadal. That is the longest Grand Slam final ever. And against Roger in 2019, the final of Wimbledon," he confidently said. "Those were the best matches I was ever part of. But the best match I ever played would be probably the final of the Australian Open against Nadal in 2019. I beat him in the final in straight sets and the level of tennis was really high."

While a great feeling to be number one in the world, Djokovic admitted that he felt lonely at times when at the top. "It feels great, but it also feels a bit lonely and you feel like you are a hunted one, so it changes the perception and the approach," Djokovic said while laughing. "Obviously it’s the ultimate achievement. Being No. 1 in any sport, in any profession, is the ultimate achievement. It’s something that I dreamed of when I was a kid: winning Wimbledon and being No. 1 in the world.

"So when you achieve that, you understand then that there is a different dimension and approach of staying there. You all of a sudden have to defend the position rather than chasing it. It’s a great feeling obviously. But at the same time, you want to stay there, so you feel a little bit at times defensive, because you want to hold on to it. It’s really about the mentality of how you approach [it]. I think it’s important to just always feel like you have to create, keep going and keep winning and you are part of that same group of the people that are chasing something: a title or a position. Because once you are thinking about, ‘Oh, I’m the No. 1, everybody wants to take this position away from me', you create this unnecessary stress and pressure on yourself."

Djokovic was in high praise of three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka. The Swiss star prevented Djokovic from completing a Grand Slam in 2015 after coming back from a set deficit to clinch the Roland Garros title.

"Wawrinka, I think he’s very underappreciated and underrated considering he is a three-time Grand Slam champion," Djokovic stated. "I think people very often forget about him and what he has achieved. He has achieved more than 90-plus per cent of the players ever in the history of the game, so I’d probably pick him."

Tennis has brought up a lot of incredible matches and conflicts throughout the years. Fascinated with the history of the sport, Djokovic admitted that it would have been a great experience to witness the previous eras of tennis, picking out the rivalry between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe as something he would have loved to have competed in.

"It would probably be one of the epic Borg-McEnroe matches that I would love to witness in the stands," he said with a smile. "Or, I would love to have had an opportunity to play with a wooden racquet and compete, see the difference. I probably would struggle a lot to hit heavy topspin with that. But I love the history of our game, so it’s amazing to see how the game has evolved in terms of technology and everything in the past 50 years. So I would have loved to have witnessed that era."

In a long and distinguished career, Alcaraz and Sinner are the next two rivals in Djokovic's career. After fending off the likes of Nadal, Federer and Andy Murray, he has struggled to consistently compete against the world number one and two, with his last win coming against Alcaraz in the 2025 Australian Open.

When asked to compare his previous rivalries with this current one, Djokovic "Very different, because I spent most of my career with my two greatest rivals: Nadal and Federer. Of course Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are also my rivals at the moment, but they’re so young. I have 15 years of difference on the Tour to them, so our rivalries are a few years old, and I have 20 years of rivalry with the other guys. So it’s not really comparable. But of course, it’s great that there is a new big rivalry in our sport between Sinner and Alcaraz. They’ve been playing some incredible matches in the past 18 months and hopefully they can keep going, because that’s what our sport needs," he concluded.