The kid from Belgrade who practised through the 1999 bombing, on courts his coach picked by where the shells had already fallen, grew into the most decorated man the sport has produced. 24 Grand Slam singles titles is the outright men's record, and the rest of the ledger is just as hard to touch: a record 428 weeks at world No. 1, a record eight year-end finishes on top, and a record forty Masters 1000 crowns. He turned the Australian Open into a private garden, winning it ten times, more than anyone has won any major.
The game is built on elastic defence, the best return of serve tennis has seen and a flexibility that leaves him almost impossible to ace, turning power back on its owner from positions no one else reaches. He was the third of the Big Three and then outlasted both, leading the two most-played rivalries of the era against Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. At Paris 2024 he beat a younger champion for the Olympic gold that finally completed his career Golden Slam. Still active, with 103 career titles behind him, he keeps arriving at the last rounds of the majors.
Twenty years. That is the distance between Gael Monfils' first tour title, Sopot in 2005, and his last, Auckland in 2025, won at 38. The International Tennis Integrity Agency now lists the Frenchman as retired from 5 October, Reuters reported on Wednesday, which ends his career before the send-off he had been expected to take at the Paris Masters in November.
News taleSeven. That is how many China Open titles Novak Djokovic now holds, after Alex de Minaur retired a game into the second set of the final, a set down. Djokovic had taken the first set in a tiebreak, 7-6 (7-3), and de Minaur had just held for 1-0 in the second when he stopped: the score reads 7-6 0-1 RET. It is Djokovic's first Beijing title since 2015, and he won it at 39, seeded 6 and ranked 11.
Match tale