When you’ve reached the peak of excellence, how do you move on? That is one of the questions central to Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter, an astute profile of the Serbian tennis great who has won more Grand Slam singles titles than any man in history, spent more weeks at number one and seized almost every other record the sport can offer, yet still refuses to hang up his racket at 39. The same question might also be aimed at Jason Hehir, the director, who in 2020 made the Emmy-winning The Last Dance, a study of basketball legend Michael Jordan that was hailed as nothing but net. After that, Hehir presumably had his pick of sports stars, but his interest in Djokovic was not simply a matter of herding another GOAT.
“As I told Novak, he would be a compelling subject if he were a plumber,” Hehir says over video call. “It had less to do with his achievements on the court than it did with what drives him off it.”