Andy Roddick believes Novak Djokovic no longer cares about the ATP rankings, saying the tennis legend is in a new phase of his career.
Throughout most of his time as a professional, Djokovic played a full schedule on the ATP Tour. That is demonstrated by the Serbian winning 40 Masters titles, more than any other player in tennis history.
At the age of 37, Djokovic's priorities have shifted. He has only played in four of the nine Masters-1000 events this season, most recently at the Shanghai Masters, where he lost to Jannik Sinner in the final.
Djokovic does not hide that his biggest priorities are the four Grand Slams and representing Serbia. He even went as far as saying he was done with tournaments like the ATP Finals.
That mindset was demonstrated by the 24-time Grand Slam champion withdrawing from next week's Paris Masters. Because of that decision, he could fail to qualify for the ATP Finals, but Djokovic is willing to take that chance.
Although Grand Slams and representing Serbia are his main priorities, Djokovic also plays some exhibitions. He played one against Grigor Dimitrov a few weeks ago and will also feature in Juan Martin Del Potro's final match before retiring in Buenos Aires on December 1st.
Djokovic was also one of six players to compete at the Six Kings Slam exhibition in Saudi Arabia last week alongside Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev, and Holger Rune.
That event saw him play Nadal for the last time before the 14-time French Open champion retires at next month's Davis Cup Finals. After the match, Djokovic paid an emotional tribute to his great rival.
Speaking on an episode of his podcast, Roddick described Djokovic's mentality at this stage of his career. He said the 10-time Australian Open champion does not care about the rankings at 37 because he has already been No. 1 for more weeks than anyone else.
"He's going to try to juggle the schedule, where he gets enough matches before Majors but really, my interpretation of how Novak is talking is that he doesn't care about rankings anymore."
"He knows what he's been, can't take away the number one ranking forever. He's had it more weeks than anyone. This is how the next phase of his career is going to go, where he picks and chooses his spots, doesn't care about Paris, isn't going to play Turin."
Roddick also mentioned Djokovic previously indicating he has no interest in playing at the ATP Finals in Turin. This means Tommy Paul, who is 10th in the race for the year-end tournament, could have a good chance of claiming one of the eight ATP Finals spots.
"The other thing, talking about being 10th in the Race to Turin, Novak has said that he's not playing Turin. He said he has no interest in playing Turin. Now, he can always change his mind but simply, I'm not great at math but if someone ahead of you is not playing, then that means you're in ninth."
"That makes sense (regarding Djokovic's Paris Masters withdrawal). I mean Novak has said that in so many words and we don't want this to take the focus away from Tommy Paul, but Novak is going to pick and choose his spots now."
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