Andrew Castle: The end is near for Djokovic

Source: Alamy Stock Photo.

The former British No.1 previewed Novak Djokovic’s chances of winning a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam ahead of the US Open.

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Novak Djokovic – what does he have left in the tank?

It doesn’t look like much to me. I mean, it doesn’t look like to me that if Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner are around that he could win another Grand Slam. It looks like the perception is, he’s finished in terms of winning Grand Slams. It’s the last kind of chapter in this storied career and now we analyse what he has done. At the French Open, I believe it was his 19th quarterfinal at the French Open alone. That is what the locker room talks about. I mean, the 24 Grand Slams is obviously ridiculous. But 19 French quarter-finals… and there’s records like that everywhere and Novak’s won everything twice or three times. He’s won every single title. Let’s just say he’s had a good run but how do you think that he feels about it? Well, okay, wait until Sinner gets injured and Carlos has a bad day and loses, then we can have a different conversation.

But as long as those two are there, I can’t see Novak winning and it’s probably exactly what he expects people to say. If anybody can turn that round and shove it up everyone’s a****, I think he would love to do that. I think that’s absolutely magnificent, and I would love it, I would be on my feet if he could get a run going and make it 25 Grand Slams at the US, especially the place where he was disqualified that one time. It would be glorious and the moment he wins the 25th, I think he should retire. You can’t go on forever, he should play as long as he wants but personally, I don’t think he is likely to win this one or another one.

What did you make of the reaction to Andre Agassi’s comments in the box when you were on commentary?

That’s the difference between the transcript and the reality; we had a great time. We had a laugh, and they took it out of context. I mean what appears to be something on paper is totally different in real life. Afterwards, Andre sent me a text, saying what an unbelievable time he’d had, and how he enjoyed it. We were going to have him for the final but then he went into the Royal Box instead, but he had a great time. We had a series of amazing texts and messages that we swapped afterwards, and it was fantastic. But then you read that he was saying, ‘just concentrate on the tennis’.

It was nothing like that in any way, shape, or form. He was saying that tongue in cheek whilst smiling at me, and in the final, I didn’t mention any celebrities at all. None. I mentioned the second row of the Royal Box, which had the former champions in that row and that’s all I mentioned in the final, but there were people afterwards who said, ‘all I talk about is the celebrities’.. and it’s not the case. It’s like people hear a commentator’s voice, I think sometimes in their own head. If you’ve got a picture of Matthew McConaughey on your screen, and I say nothing, I think people are hearing things, because I didn’t mention any of that stuff.

So, the moral of the story is that you can’t keep everybody happy all the time. I mean, the audience figures for the final were fantastic and there were 8.8 million viewers on terrestrial television. How many events get that over the course of the year? That’s for a tennis match that didn’t involve a Brit in an age when there’s a channel for everybody and everything. I thought it was great to move the final to 4 o’clock. That worked really well as it picks up a much, much bigger audience and also brings in the West Coast of the United States at a more comfortable time.

What did you make of Emma Raducanu complaining about a baby during her game in Cincinnati?

I’ve got an eight-month-old granddaughter and it’s a funny thing, babies cry. The question is not what Emma said or anything else. I understand that it’s distracting. It’s more about, are babies in arms allowed to be at these sports events or are they not? I think tennis is guilty of worrying too much about that kind of stuff. Babies are different, but I don’t like it in America when they tell the crowd to be quiet. I love playing in America because they’re not quiet. They’re a huge economic superpower.

They love their sport, they pay their money, they work, and then they go watch a sporting event, and this is off the subject of Emma, but, I mean, get on with it. I don’t need an umpire saying, ‘oh, quiet, please’, maybe at Wimbledon it is different, but the US Open, Cincinnati and Toronto, make as much noise as you want. You’ve been to work all week. Let’s go, let’s get cracking. I personally think it sounds ridiculous, again that is separate to Emma complaining about a baby at Cincinnati. But the babies in arms, I’m not sure what they’re doing in a stadium. You’ve got to be near an exit if you’ve got a baby in your arms.