Djokovic's ranking is an irrelevance to his wider tennis ambitions but now more than ever, he needs it to help him achieve them.

Novak Djokovic is back at the Mutua Madrid Open after skipping the past two editions, but based on this vision from a recent training session, it doesn’t appear to be going that smoothly. With local hero Carlos Alcaraz withdrawing at the last minute, the spotlight has naturally shifted to the Serbian.

People have started to accept, he says, that there is no more Roger Federer, no more Rafael Nadal and — soon — no more Novak Djokovic.