Private equity’s expansion into sport has a new front, and it runs through a tennis player’s phone contacts. General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm managing $126 billion in assets, named Novak Djokovic its global strategic advisor on June 26, 2026, days before Djokovic opened his Wimbledon campaign.
Djokovic brings access to founders and emerging companies in health, wellness and sports technology that the firm’s own pipeline does not easily reach. The firm, in turn, gives Djokovic’s portfolio companies and contacts access to institutional capital and operational expertise. Djokovic’s mandate covers work with the firm’s leadership, portfolio companies and investors, focused on what Djokovic has described as the intersection of “sports technology, wellness and healthcare.”
General Atlantic’s active lifestyle footprint
Over the past two years, the firm has taken positions in Gymshark, Vuori, Joe & the Juice (where Djokovic already serves as a brand ambassador), LiveMode and Grupo Águilas, the Mexican organization that manages Club América and the Azteca Stadium. The common thread across those positions: consumer businesses operating where physical performance, wellbeing and experience converge.
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An active player and an active investor
The arrangement is also notable for what Djokovic has been building off the court since at least 2023. That year he invested in functional hydration brand Waterdrop. In 2024, he cofounded supplement company SILA. In 2025 he launched clean snack brand Cob Foods and backed wearables company Incrediwear.
Djokovic brings investor experience, but the on court proof point is still current: at 39, after reaching the Australian Open final earlier this year, Novak Djokovic remains in the mix at Wimbledon 2026, advancing to the third round after a four set win over Wu Yibing and a straight sets victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas. He is scheduled to play Arthur Rinderknech on July 3, 2026, opening the daytime session on Centre Court.
The present and future of tennis
General Atlantic chief executive Bill Ford described Djokovic’s “views about how professional tennis can be reshaped” as strong. The comment seems fair. Days earlier, at a press conference following his Wimbledon first round win, Djokovic laid out a diagnosis of the sport’s commercial and structural condition that went well beyond the generic answers athletes tend to give after matches.
The starting point was the audience. Djokovic cited a study commissioned by the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), the player group he cofounded in 2020 with Vasek Pospisil, putting the average age of tennis fans at 61. Younger audiences follow Grand Slams, he acknowledged, but are unlikely to commit four or five hours to a circuit match.
The core point: attention spans have changed; the sport’s format has not adapted.
His proposed direction: shorter, more dynamic match structures, tested in circuit events before any Grand Slam application. The calendar is central to that case. The progressive extension of the Masters 1000 tournament format, a change Djokovic said he had consistently opposed, increases event revenue while placing the physical burden on players who cannot choose their schedules as he can.
What General Atlantic can expect from Djokovic
The PTPA was founded precisely to address that asymmetry. Its structural argument against the ATP has been consistent since 2020: players and tournaments share governance of the tour but do not share economic interests, and that conflict is inevitable. Reform, Djokovic argued at Wimbledon, requires every stakeholder at the table simultaneously. That, he said, is not currently happening.
In Djokovic’s words, a sport with an aging fan base, a governance structure that has failed to deliver reform and a product format out of step with how audiences consume live sport represents, for private equity, a market with significant unrealized value. For General Atlantic, which has now established institutional proximity to Djokovic’s network and agenda, the diagnosis also serves as a commercial compass. The strategic advisor role will not be only a prestigious label for a brand ambassador or door opener, but a real responsibility that may help shape the next wave of commercial sport investment strategies.
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