California Dreamin’ in 41 Carats

Novak Djokovic parked his luggage before eternity the way one leans a bicycle against Notre-Dame: a last kiss for Roland-Garros’s red clay, a sigh—“It was perhaps my last match here.” The press, a flock of sparrows, heard the call of dusk. Wrong horizon: the Serb’s gaze reaches farther, to where the Pacific already laps the Olympic courts of 2028.

“The only thing I’m thinking about right now, the only thing that motivates me, is the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, to represent my country. The Grand Slams too, but they aren’t on the same level as the Olympic Games, in my opinion.”

Thus spoke Nole in an hour-long confession to Croatian channel (Ne) uspjeh prvaka. At 41 he intends to swing once more from those five rings like a child on a jungle gym, golden crown in mind—the one he seized in Paris after draining Carlos Alcaraz in twin tie-break firestorms (7-6 [3], 7-6 [2]).

Between two gusts of nostalgia he admits time has stolen some shards of heart:

“A big part of me left” with the retirements of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. “I’m really different since Rafa’s departure; I didn’t think it would hit me like that.”

And the young lions? His glance turns professorial, impish:

“Sinner and Alcaraz are very impressive players, but incomparable to the Big Three.”

The stage is set: Djokovic, last musketeer of the grand romance, favors the violet ink of memory over the green ink of score cards. Yet he vows to ply his craft until the Los Angeles sunset, like Ulysses still seeking “other suns” beyond Ithaca. Grand Slams will matter, yes, but he’s drawn a single totem now: Olympus or nothing.

See you, then, in 2028. Time will play its tricks; Novak means to age like a robust Serbian wine—dark, spicy, ready to be uncorked beneath California’s palms. For deep in the flame glows a stubborn ember of childhood: the one that believes, at forty-one, the dream can still stand atop an Olympic podium.