Djokovic's ranking is an irrelevance to his wider tennis ambitions but now more than ever, he needs it to help him achieve them.

People have started to accept, he says, that there is no more Roger Federer, no more Rafael Nadal and — soon — no more Novak Djokovic.

Novak Djokovic headed into the Madrid Open eyeing a move into the top four of the ATP Rankings, but he is in danger of moving backwards after his surprise defeat against Matteo Arnaldi. A brutally honest Djokovic suggested he was facing a “new reality” after slumping to a third straight defeat as he was beaten by unseeded Italian Arnaldi in the Spanish capital.