Novak Djokovic’s best chance of winning an unprecedented 25th Grand Slam singles title comes at Wimbledon in 2025, according to former British No 1 Tim Henman.

Djokovic currently shared the record with Margaret Court and missed the chance to move clear on his own when losing last year’s Wimbledon final to Carlos Alcaraz.

Injuries are increasingly affecting the 37-year-old at the back-end of his career, with the Serb pulling out at the quarter-final stage of last year’s French Open with a knee injury, while he lasted only one set of his Australian Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev last week due to a torn muscle in his left leg.

“I think Wimbledon is his best shot to win a 25th Grand Slam,” Henman said on Thursday, at the launch of Sky Sports’ tennis coverage of the ATP and WTA Tours and US Open in 2025.

“He made the final last year on the back of knee surgery. And I think it’s a combination of his confidence and understanding of grass-court tennis, and there perhaps being fewer other players who are comfortable on grass.

“You look at who realistically could have won in Australia, there was four, maybe five players? On grass it probably ends up being even less… [world No 1] Jannik Sinner has been in the semis, but I think grass is probably the surface that he’s most vulnerable on; there’s Djokovic and Alcaraz, but beyond that it’s difficult to predict.”

Henman added that it was ‘indefensible’ of the Melbourne Park crowd to boo Djokovic off court when visibly injured after losing that opening set to Zverev in his semi-final exit.

“You dig a bit deeper, in my opinion, he’s always craved the affection that has been shown to [Roger] Federer and [Rafael] Nadal,” Henman reasoned.

“He absolutely doesn’t deserve to be booed off the court, in the semis of a slam, when he’s had to retire.

“I, like a lot of people, said I think they got it totally wrong. For someone that is going for their 11th Australian Open title, and their 25th slam, to have pulled out after a set, he was obviously in a bad way.

“For him to be booed in that moment, I think it’s pretty indefensible.”

What next for Murray? Henman hopes for British ‘project’

Djokovic shocked the tennis fraternity when appointing former British No 1 and old playing rival Andy Murray as his coach his Australian Open run.

It remains to be seen whether their alliance continues going forward, but Henman believes Murray has certainly been bitten by the coaching back and would love him to work with up-and-coming British players in the future.

“My advice to Andy [after retiring] was take your time,” Henman said. “So he obviously didn’t listen to that.

“I don’t necessarily think he saw it coming either. It was a bit of a call out of the blue. But perhaps getting that opportunity to work with one of the greats of the game was too good of one to turn down.

“For all of us that were involved in Australia, it was another fascinating element. And to see Andy courtside, seeing how calm he was, I thought it was fun to watch.

“We’re all slightly guessing, but I think there’s been enough indications from Andy that he would like to go down the coaching route.

“I would have thought he would like a little bit more of a project, a work in progress, if you will. And I do hope that it’s within the British game. Andy’s obviously got so much to offer.”

Henman: Zero appetite for 15-day Wimbledon

Henman added that Wimbledon would have ‘zero appetite’ to add a 15th day to the grass-court slam and follow the lead of the other majors.

The US Open announced this week that it would extend their main draw to 15 days for the 2025 tournament, while the Australian Open made the same step this year and the French Open changed to a Sunday start in 2006.

Henman, who is a member of the All England Tennis Club board, said: “I think the appetite to go to 15 days is zero, first and foremost because of the courts.

“The big issue from when it was a 13-day event was that the middle Sunday was absolutely about watering the court to make sure that it was going to be still alive for the latter part of the tournament.

“Centre Court is the one that gets played on the most because it’s used every day and to have it in the best possible condition for the final weekend, it was a big decision to go to 14 days. The research and data around that, you’re looking at 80 hours of tennis on Centre, that’s the sort of maximum.”

While tradition remains important at Wimbledon, Henman admitted there was little option other than to dispense with line judges from this year’s event onwards.

“You know, every event on the ATP Tour will have electronic line calling this year,” he said. “So if Wimbledon were to have taken the decision to say, ‘oh no, we’re actually going to keep line judges’, I think that would have looked very bizarre.”

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