Andy Roddick has delivered his take on Novak Djokovic’s surprise decision to accept a main-draw wildcard for this year’s Swiss Indoors in Basel. Djokovic last appeared in Basel in 2011, and according to Roddick, the Serb is set to grace the ATP 500-level indoor hard-court event to prepare for next year’s Australian Open.

In recent seasons, Djokovic’s approach to playing the Grand Slams has typically involved competing in tune-up events before heading to the Majors. In some instances, he has not played any warm-up tournaments at all. For example, earlier this year, he played the Australian Open without a tune-up event and, astonishingly, reached the final after defeating Jannik Sinner in the last four.

However, Roddick believes that it is getting increasingly hard for the 39-year-old Serb to show up directly at the Majors and challenge for a record 25th title. Touching on the subject in his “Served” podcast, the former No. 1 said:

“In the absence of an extended format and in the absence of outdoor extreme conditions, was I worried about Novak being able to play tennis? Absolutely not. Are we building some momentum towards Australia? Yes. Does it matter if he still has to play best of five, and it’s 100 degrees out, and will he play more going into Australia? I don’t know that you can just show up and play a slam. I guess that’s my point.”

Roddick went on to cite Djokovic’s participation in Beijing and Shanghai this year after a disastrous first-round loss at the US Open, saying that playing outside the Slams keeps the Serb in touch with competitive match play. The 2003 US Open champion added:

“I love the way that he’s going about this because if you don’t play from the US Open and then you try to play one match in, you know, Brisbane and then you go try to win a major, I just think that’s really hard generally and I think it’s just harder as you go, right? I think it’s much harder at 40 than it is at even 37 for Novak.”

Roddick continued:

“Like can you kind of wing a Slam run? I don’t know that the answer’s immediately yes for Novak now. I love that he’s getting match play because even if he takes a month off, he’s not going to be in a hurry to get those feels. Like those feels aren’t going to disappear in a week or two, right? Then you can load up your body. Then you can do all the physical training. But I like late match play in the year before going down to Australia in January.”

Novak Djokovic set to enter Swiss Indoors in Basel after a poor showing in Shanghai despite maintaining unbeaten run in Beijing

At the 2026 China Open in Beijing, Djokovic won his 102nd career singles title to maintain his undefeated status at the event. The former No. 1 has now played 34 matches in Beijing and won them all, with the victories yielding seven titles along the way.

Immediately after his Beijing title triumph, the Serb headed to the Shanghai Masters. However, his quest for a 103rd title and 41st success at Masters 1000 level fell flat in his opener against former top 10 star Hubert Hurkacz, who produced a ruthless display to beat the Serb 6-4, 6-3.