Novak Djokovic Next Tournament: All you need to know about Serb's schedule after Qatar Open shocker

Novak Djokovic last competed at the Qatar Open and will next compete at the Indian Wells Masters. That was confirmed on social media by the Indian Wells Masters page which floated him as a player coming to the event.

In fairness, it also floated Venus Williams as a player that would play at this year’s Indian Wells Masters only for her to come out and deny that a couple of days later. Unless it messes up in a big way again, we'll roll with Djokovic showing up to play at the event. However, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion when he crashed out of the Qatar Open a few days ago.

Djokovic returned at the event as it was the first time he played since the Australian Open, which was derailed by a leg injury. Doha looked fine as he played well, but he then ran into an inspired Matteo Berrettini who proved a bit too tough to overcome.

There was no indication that Novak Djokovic had any lingering effects of the injury but footage of him limping slightly at the Qatar Open showed up and many fans got concerned. That video cemented that Djokovic wouldn’t be playing at the Dubai event so the attention turned to Indian Wells.

The event wasn’t too far away and an injury could still impact that event; however, it seems like it won’t. We’re a couple of days away from that and Djokovic has been confirmed to play though it remains to be seen if he truly shows up. The injury could still be affecting him but he’s keeping shush. Last year’s Indian Wells Masters wasn’t a great time for him as he lost early against Luca Nardi.

There remains a question of how motivated he will be but those follow Djokovic at all the events he plays that are not Grand Slams. He did seem quite inspired in that Doha match showing quite a bit of emotion and wanting to win but he didn’t have the level for it.

Many questions are lingering for Novak Djokovic, especially the health ones as he’s been dealing with a few injury problems lately.

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Novak Djokovic’s injury record is not as impeccable anymore

Novak Djokovic: French Open Tennis Tournament. Roland-Garros 2024. - Source: Getty

For much of his career, Novak Djokovic has had an impeccable injury record rarely missing time. He did have an elbow problem that gave him massive issues a couple of years ago but since then he’s been mostly injury-free. That’s changed in the past year and a bit more dating back to the French Open where an injury prevented him from finishing the event.

Djokovic also dealt with a couple of injuries later in the year as his US Open was hampered by one. He started this year with more injury concern as a leg injury derailed his Australian Open and now the Qatar Open was as well. While that’s not an overwhelming amount of injury it’s pretty clear that his body is slowly becoming a problem because he’s dealing with more and more of those which isn’t something that he’s used to.

Djokovic’s also not playing as much which might be him simply playing the events he’ll care about but it might also be a conscious effort trying to limit his fatigue overall.

As great and as crisp as his tennis has remained Novak Djokovic does rely heavily on his physique. His game is centered around him being able to be on the shot on time so he can deliver a quality one and if the step is a bit too slow he won’t be able to play as well as he has. We’ve seen that in matches against Jannik Sinner where he doesn’t have an answer not because he can’t play a quality shot but because he doesn’t have the time under the relentless pressure of the Italian.

The body is where it is and won’t get younger so he’s slowly but surely drifting downwards. As great as he’s been in the past twenty years Djokovic at one point will hit his limit and he’s slowly but surely been drifting toward that. It would be foolish to pronounce him as done before he is done but the trends with him lately haven’t been good.

Maybe the Sunshine double will show us something else. Perhaps the clay season will show something else. Maybe Djokovic will win Wimbledon again but what is clear is that chances to win are getting less and less and with time they will become zero. That’s when he’ll leave the sport though not as a sad man because his career is the best tennis career humanity has ever witnessed. Perhaps forever.