Novak Djokovic broke into the tennis scene a decade ago as the third wheel to the domination of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. Since then, he has been – and striven to be – a player with a difference. And his journey to that end continues, if recent events are anything to go by.
When the World no. 1 announced a week ago that he wouldn’t be returning to Beijing to defend his China Open title because of an elbow problem, it looked like any other injury-forced withdrawal. However, it wasn’t until his press conference and what he revealed in it that the seriousness of his struggles after having won the French Open hit home.
— Novak Djokovic
I psychologically felt huge pressure, and now I’m no longer thinking about the number of titles. If they come, super, I will accept them. After all, tennis is not the only thing in the world.
With this confession Djokovic explicitly separated himself from the burden of expectations placed on him.
These expectations have been building upon themselves since he refashioned himself in 2011, three years after he won his first Major in 2008, at the Australian Open. In the five years since, Djokovic has more than stamped his mark on the game as the world’s best player.
He has completed the Grand Slam in fine fashion, won more Masters 1000 titles than anyone, and has a positive head-to-head against his three biggest rivals – Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Andy Murray. And, at least until after the French Open, he also looked like he would be the player with the most number of Grand Slams, crossing both the Swiss’s and Spaniard’s tallies.
Looking back, though, it seems presumptuous to have assumed that Djokovic would be breaking these records as well. Not because he isn't capable, but because the two players before him had made their tallies without losing perspective of what they’d come to mean for men’s tennis in recent times.
It is in this that Djokovic’s difference from Federer and Nadal has been laid out, far more strikingly than during his days as jester to their conventional ways.
The similarities with Federer and Nadal
Federer and Nadal completed the career Grand Slam, back-to-back, in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Federer did so – like the Serbian – at Roland Garros, a win that coincidentally put him on par with Pete Sampras’s total of 14 Majors. A year later, Nadal became only the seventh player to win the Slam quartet after winning at Wimbledon. But while both Federer and Nadal went on to add more Majors to this record of theirs, Djokovic in contrast has become unsure of his objectives.
It is true that injuries have influenced his form in the aftermath of his completion of the Grand Slam, be it before the Cincinnati Open when he had to pull out with a wrist injury, or during the US Open final, where he was affected by a blister on his toe, or this week in the Chinese capital, where he withdrew because of an elbow injury. He’s been unable to defend titles because of them. Perhaps it’s understandable that he finds this a bemusing situation to be in.
“I had to learn to listen to my body. Once I did everything changed. You could call it magic. It felt like magic,” Djokovic had mentioned in his 2013 book Serve to Win, talking about changes that involved his opting for a gluten-free diet. At the French Open 2016 he revealed in one of his press conferences that he’s further modified his diet. “It’s been almost a year. Almost a year. How do you call that? A pescatarian, vegan with eating a little bit of fish here and there.”
Given the efforts Djokovic has expended to perfect his fitness, it’s pretty that his body let him down. Nonetheless, he is neither the first player, nor the first Grand Slam champion, to have been impacted thus. Federer and Nadal have found themselves in a similar scenario.
Federer’s assured game dipped in 2010 and then in 2013, the latter his definite nadir, before he recovered in 2014 and 2015. Nadal’s trysts with injuries are ongoing, with the latest episode involving his left wrist yet again causing him to pull out – from the French Open, no less – and sit out of the whole grass season.
Bogged down as they both were, Federer and Nadal didn’t think in matter-of-fact terms about winning Slams, titles or making a return to being the World no. 1. In fact, this year, while announcing his decision to end his season after Wimbledon, Federer noted:
I have made the very difficult decision to call an end to my 2016 season as I need more extensive rehabilitation following my knee surgery earlier this year. The doctors advised that if I want to play on the ATP World Tour injury free for another few years, as I intend to do, I must give both my knee and body the proper time to fully recover. It is tough to miss the rest of the year. I am as motivated as ever and plan to put all my energy towards coming back strong, healthy and in shape to play attacking tennis in 2017.
— Roger Federer
And while he may not be as voluble in laying out his future career plans, Rafa too has ideas about continuing and maintaining his presence on the courts for as long as possible.
The Andy Murray factor
Despite changing the panorama of tennis, this is one area where Djokovic needs to be similar to his rivals. His words about pressure not being a factor are fine ones, but as has been evident over the past two years, playing under pressure brings out the ruthlessness in him. He probably will never experience the same kind of pressure anymore, but that’s no reason for him to slow down.
For, there’s Andy Murray almost ready to take his place and bring British elegance to men’s tennis after eons, this time right at the top of the rankings. Alongside, Murray is emerging as a game-changer in different ways, by give men’s tennis more of a push to address important issues – equal pay for male and female tennis players, for instance.
Were a switchover at the top indeed to take place at the end of 2016, Andy Murray will become the new deviant, pitted against the orthodoxy of Novak Djokovic.