John McEnroe predicts Novak Djokovic will find motivation for 25th Grand Slam title next season

John McEnroe believes Novak Djokovic will regain his motivation in 2025 to win his 25th Grand Slam title. The Serbian concluded his first season without winning a major title since 2017, plagued by injuries throughout the year.

This year, Djokovic appeared to become a more vulnerable player, suffering unexpected losses to players who seemed to have little chance against him, such as Alejandro Tabilo (No. 32), Tomas Machac (No. 44), and Alexei Popyrin (No. 28).

With the end of the US Open, Djokovic has a record of 16-3 in majors. In years when he contested all four majors, this is his lowest result since 15-4 in 2009. He has only achieved fewer wins in 2017 (missing the US Open) and 2022 (missing the Australian Open and US Open).

After Djokovic secured the coveted Olympic gold medal, he can now say that he has won all the major tournaments he competed in and holds records that are difficult to surpass, including 24 Grand Slam titles (at least three times), 40 Masters 1000 titles (at least twice each), and more weeks as No. 1 with 428.

Many have suggested that Djokovic might lack motivation to continue winning titles, considering he has surpassed his great rivals Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in all kinds of records. However, John McEnroe has a different view:

“You never want to count him out,” he told Eurosport. “This would certainly be the first time where you could say with some seriousness that you start to wonder if he's going to win again. How long can this guy keep motivated? Then he won the Olympic gold. I'm amazed that he's kept it [motivation] for this long,” the 7-time Grand Slam champion added.

“I’m sure to be surprised either way. If he doesn’t win [a major], you would be like, wow – he won three of the four last year. And now we’re saying he’ll never win it again. And then I would sort of be surprised in a way if he did, because of his age. At some point, that catches up to you, and you lose a little bit of that fear factor with some of the guys,” the former world No. 1 opined.

“Then guys that didn’t think they had a chance feel like they have a chance, and that whole thing changes and makes it much tougher. That’s what he’s facing right now. It will be interesting to see if he’s able to pull it off. But I do think he’ll try to find that motivation to get number 25.”

McEnroe also discussed what he considers Djokovic’s biggest challenge: Carlos Alcaraz, who, at 21, already has four Grand Slam titles and defeated Djokovic in the Wimbledon semifinals for the second consecutive year.

The American considered Alcaraz to have a generational talent even greater than that of the Big Three: “I think Alcaraz is the most complete player I’ve seen at his age, better than those other guys. That’s how good he is,” McEnroe said.

“If you had told me that Djokovic, Federer, and Nadal would all have 20 majors, I would have said you were crazy,” John McEnroe said. “Somehow, they took the sport to a whole new level. You’re talking arguably about the three greatest players that ever lived playing at this time.”

“To think that that won’t be a big void would be crazy. Of course, it’s a big void. You’ve got these all-time greats. We are lucky Djokovic is still playing so well that these young players, Alcaraz and Sinner being the two most obvious, come along and are able to have somewhat of a rivalry with him.”

“The next step for me is getting, you know, hopefully, some American men and a couple other players, because in a one-on-one sport, in my opinion, you need rivals. You need great rivalries,” the 4-time US Open champion added. “That’s what made that so interesting and made them better players. It’s very important. But as you know, in all sports, Father Time never loses.”