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Journalism of Courage
Novak Djokovic, the Serbian tennis star, recently threw light on his professional career and how he survived the worst injury. Speaking on a podcast with Jay Shetty, the Serbian star revealed he had battled a long-term elbow problem before finally undergoing surgery in 2017—something he had vowed never to do.
“I had surgery on my elbow back in 2017, and I’d had that injury for a year and a half,” Djokovic said. “I don’t normally take anti-inflammatories, I don’t like tablets, cortisol shots, or anything like that. But I was on them for a year, and even then, the pain wouldn’t go away. That was the sign I had to operate.”
However, Djokovic was put on anti-inflammatories for a year. “So I’ve done it for a year, I felt the pain even if I was taking the full dose of anti-inflammatories and that was the sign for me like I have to operate this,” he said, adding, “I made a kind of a little bit of a while to myself and promised that I will not operate myself throughout my career, will not make any surgery and I felt I let myself down. I cried for days that I accepted to do to a surgery but surgery was done very well.”
“I had an arthroscopic intervention on my knee last year during a match in Roland Garros. I have won in five sets after four and a half hours. But I was winning a set and a half comfortably in the last 16 round,” Djokovic added.
“It was very weird. And I never had an injury of the knee luckily at least that severe. And then I started to play but I could not stand on my leg and I was playing through the pain. Then I invited physio and he was touching me in this spot where my meniscus is, and I felt that’s painful. I said I want to give it a shot. Just give me the strongest painkillers you have right now because I am on the court, full stadium. I want to try. I went through it and I won the match,” Djokovic shared.
Meanwhile, Djokovic defeated fourth seed Taylor Fritz to advance to the men’s singles semifinals at the US Open 2025. He won the quarterfinal match with a score of 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4.
