Novak Djokovic admitted he once felt “very frustrated” over failing multiple times to win the French Open but also believed that he was inching towards achieving that goal.

By 2011, the Serb had won every Grand Slam but the French Open – where he had been yet to even make a final. While he managed to reach three finals between 2012 and 2015, he was still without a title at Roland Garros after twice losing to Rafael Nadal (2012 and 2014) and he also fell short to Stan Wawrinka in 2015.

In 2016, that finally changed after Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in the final for his first French Open title and to complete a Career Grand Slam. In an interview with his sponsor HEAD Tennis, the 37-year-old said that he accomplished his two childhood dreams in 2011 when he won Wimbledon and reached the world No. 1 position.

“When I achieved that, then it was what’s next? What’s the next big dream? The next big dream is let’s win as many Slams as possible. Then I wanted to complete all of the Slams, and Roland Garros was the one that I never won. To that point, I lost several finals and I was feeling very frustrated not to grab the French Open title. But each year, I felt I was stepping closer and closer to it,” the Serbian tennis star said.

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“So it happened in 2016 in front of one my childhood idols, Gustavo Guga Kuerten, who won the Roland Garros three times. Then I asked him, would I be able to kind of draw the hearts on the clay and kind of copy him and he gave me his blessing. So I did that and at that point, I held all the four slams in a row. It was a very unique moment.”

Since winning it all at Roland Garros for the first time, Djokovic also collected the French Open titles in 2021 and 2023.

Last year, Djokovic set a new all-time record for the most Grand Slams as he has 24 Majors in his collection and managed to beat out Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in that battle.