When at 38, the tennis player with the most Grand Slam titles slides and falls while trying to return a shot from Carlos Alcaraz, then gets up, takes a deep breath and gets back to work, you know there’s no bigger hero of the wellness age than Novak Djokovic. He cries in post-match interviews about losing his first coach. He does an imaginary violin riff for his daughter, mentors new stars of the sport, and speaks up about competitive burnout. Wellness practices and holistic health are no longer just luxury but also painstaking scientific inquiry, and Djokovic embodies that as the ultimate evangelist for holistic health.
In May this year, Amanbagh in Rajasthan, part of the Aman group of luxury resorts of which Djokovic is ambassador, launched a three-day “detoxification programme to offer a guided reset for body, mind and spirit”, curated by the tennis champion and tailored to Indian needs. Djokovic himself will host a retreat at the group’s Turks and Caicos property, Amanyara, from 21-23 November. Guests will have access to the wellness methods he has adopted over the past decade, including physical training, basic tennis lessons, restorative practices and the mindfulness tool he swears by, breath work or pranayama.
Dr Swaroop Savanur, a mental conditioning coach for peak performance, who has trained Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Ankita Raina and Pooja Rani, says the Djokovic formula of integrative holistic health “is the new way to go beyond the physical and the mental; to understand where a sportsperson comes from; to understand the whole person and address mental and emotional blocks. Every young person I coach nowadays asks for that approach. And Djokovic is definitely the pioneer of this approach.”
What exactly is the Djokovic philosophy? The three-day programme at Amanbagh is surprisingly quite basic. “Everything that is featured in the Aman programme, I’ve tried myself at some point in my career, whether during training or in moments of rest. Combining these tools, I worked with the Aman team to ensure the programme felt well-rounded, grounded and achievable, ensuring we could truly make a difference, even in a short space of time,” Djokovic told CNN Traveller earlier this year.
Holistic health and Djokovic is a continuing story. Last year, he announced his own wellness label SILA with a hydration product, and soon after, Aman Resorts announced him as the group’s global wellness advisor. He is building SILA along with his friend from his teenage years, Mark Stillitano, and plans to launch several more products.
A common thread in every Djokovic interview is his emphasis on closeness with nature and stillness of mind through sustained meditation. Amanbagh is luxurious stillness, situated as it is across 47 acres in the lush Aravalli Hills near the Sariska Tiger Reserve. Besides being gratifying to the soul, the Amanbagh experience, designed around discreet luxury, culturally immersive elements and dense nature, has a lot of currency in 2025. Look out into its hilly peripheries, and you’ll see langur families perambulate the serene property. Residents from neighbouring villages nurture Amanbagh’s expansive organic vegetable and herb garden.
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Breakfast at Amanbagh, Rajasthan
The local accent is Ayurveda. The original founder of Aman Resorts, Indonesian hotelier Adrian Zecha, had the Arabic and Sanskrit meanings of the word ‘aman’ in mind when he envisioned the chain—peace and love in Sanskrit; peace, trust, safety and protection in Arabic. Under current owner, CEO and chairman Vlad Doronin, who acquired Aman Resorts in 2014, that ‘aman’ spirit can be found in its “luxury with a provincial heart”—minimal carbon footprint, abundant space and privacy, and a full-fledged Ayurveda douse.
Resident Ayurveda expert Dr Vivek Chandel, an Ayurveda graduate from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bengaluru, with a practice that spans over 16 years, prescribes personalised regimens for detoxification based on his reading of nadi pariksha (pulse diagnosis) and prakriti and dosha (body constitution) analysis. The morning metabolic reset has a sequence: Seasonal fruits, a celery-based juice (a well-known Djokovic ritual), a yoga session with a pranayama-oriented resident yoga therapist, and Ayurvedic oil treatments. Local grains like bajra and seasonal vegetables prepared with homegrown herbs and flowers come to the table with personalised attention to spices and portions.
The detox programme ends with a fire meditation ritual. The tennis star’s dedication to meditation is well-known. Around 2010-11, after a long spell of missed chances at Grand Slams, Djokovic allowed himself a reset. He embraced functional medicine and holistic health at a time when it was simply “pseudo-science”. He eliminated gluten and dairy from his diet, adopted meditation and other mindfulness practices as daily rituals and inspired athletes around the world to go that route because after 2011, his success on court was unstoppable. His recovery time became aspirational.
As Doroin says in an email interview, “Novak Djokovic is an athlete whose resilience and adaptability have allowed him to stay at the pinnacle of tennis for over a decade. To remain competitive at the highest level over such an extended period demands far more than skill. Aman has always delivered a holistic and integrative wellness experience, designed to take care of mind, body and spirit.” And that’s a feeling you take away from Amanbagh—a lasting sense of mental clarity and physical suppleness.
Sanjukta Sharma is a Mumbai-based journalist who runs The Slow Fix.
