Is the GOAT debate ever going to settle in men’s tennis? When you have players as great as Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic in the sport, it’s no surprise that tennis fans cannot reach a consensus. Though in terms of numbers, Djokovic leads with his 24 Slams, there’s one ATP record where Federer has him beat. Though Novak Djokovic has the record within touching distance, age is not on his side. Even so, Djokovic has been advised by Sam Querrey about a major change that he’ll need to incorporate if he wishes to overcome the Swiss maestro’s record.

But enough delay, what is this record we’re talking about? Well, it’s about the total number of ATP titles. Because even though Djokovic has the most number of Grand Slam titles at 24 and has 100 ATP trophies under his belt, he is not among the top players to have won the most ATP titles. Hall of Famer Jimmy Connors leads the pack with his 109 titles, followed by Federer, who has 103 titles.

As a result, former American star Sam Querrey feels that something needs to change for Djokovic. In the Nothing Major Podcast, he said, “I don’t think it matters to him, given his schedule this year. The last three tournaments he played were Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open. If Novak wanted to pass those players, he could. He could play 250 tournaments and win them. We saw this year that he reached the semifinals of all four Grand Slams, which makes him the third-best player in the world at the majors.”

Further, he went on to add, “And where is he ranked now? Seventh? I think he’s generally considered the third-best player in the world right now. He could enter a handful of 250 tournaments this year and probably win 10 of them. For that reason alone, I don’t think those numbers—passing Federer and Jimmy Connors—are important to him.”

However, Querrey wasn’t the only one who urged Djokovic to play the ATP 250 and ATP 500 tournaments. Even Jimmy Arias called out the Serb for a major blunder before the US Open.

Novak Djokovic finds himself in a catch-22 situation

The Serb has been going cautiously over the past few years in order to prolong his career. As a result, one could seldom see Djokovic playing in the ATP 250 or the ATP 500 events. Take the example of this year, where Djokovic has played just two ATP 250 tournaments in Brisbane and Geneva and one ATP 500 tournament in Doha. Additionally, he also skipped the warm-up tournaments leading up to the US Open, inviting criticism from Arias.

Talking about this, Arias said, “The problem is that I don’t think he’s in good enough shape. It’s hard to work as hard as you do in a match without adrenaline, without that feeling. Adrenaline takes so much out of you, and you can’t recreate it in practice. I don’t care how much you practice, but I feel like he needs to have a couple of tune-up tournaments to get used to playing. He was almost dying in the first match against Lerner Tien, and he was playing the night match.”

However, Djokovic has his concerns about playing in more tournaments. He doesn’t want to strain his body and wants to focus on big tournaments like the Grand Slams.