It began as an outlandish tie-up in the 2013 off-season, only to become one of the most successful player-coach relationship tennis had witnessed in recent times. And like any other partnership, good or otherwise, the Boris Becker and Novak Djokovic affiliation too has also come to an end, in the same month it had started, three years before.
The slowing down of Djokovic in the latter portion of the 2016 season that effectually brought the end of their teaming-up is eerily similar to how their collaboration worked out in its initial days, in 2014.
2014 and 2015: The good times
The Serbian won his second Wimbledon title and a few other assorted titles that year, but these were not enough to temper the questionability that Becker’s appointment raised. Thanks to his ouster from the Australian Open in the quarter-finals and his (then) continuing inability to cross the hurdle named Rafael Nadal at the French Open. There again, while his results – on certain occasions – were shaky, Becker’s influence on him was slowly starting to gather steam.
2015 saw the formidability that Becker had etched upon Djokovic, transforming him from a serious contender into a player everyone looked to avoid in tournaments. Although Djokovic was the world’s top-ranked player, and had been so for quite some time, the absoluteness of his stature as a player and as the reigning World No. 1 wasn’t felt until then.
Though he still had not won the French Open, he had finally gotten past Nadal, whose game he was never able to crack before at the event. Not even Roger Federer, with his Grand Slam completion feat at the 2009 French Open, could boast of such an accomplishment.
The beginning of the end
The high soaring nature of Djokovic’s exploits were matched in tempo by the growing reverence towards Becker. The German, who had no previous coaching experience and who – not too long ago – had been looked down upon as a hasty choice to be a coach, let alone Djokovic’s, turned into a most sought-after person. Becker’s reputation by then had become as deeply entrenched as that of Toni Nadal, during Rafa’s peak in 2008, and even afterward, extending right up to last season.
This similarity Becker shared with Toni Nadal did not end there. Rather, it extended to the point where their protégés’ poor results became a reflection of what their coaches could contribute.
With regard to Rafa, when Toni’s resourcefulness in helping to turnaround his despondent form in 2015 looked to be inadequate, a wave of comments was triggered on why the younger Nadal would benefit from having a super-coach, including from Toni himself.
2016: Backlashes and decision-making
The second half of the 2016 season then posed this query to Becker, and by extension, to Djokovic. Unlike Rafa, who’s always held his family, and his personal relationship with Toni as a priority over their professional commitments, Djokovic however was not bound to Becker in such a manner regardless of what they had achieved together in the last three years.
Becker courted huge controversy for Djokovic in 2015 with his statements about Federer. One such opinion was published in his book Wimbledon: My Life and Career at the All England Club, where he’d had accusingly pointed out, “Federer and Djokovic don’t like each other. The reason Roger is one of the highest-paid athletes of all time is because he’s liked by everybody. But think about this, you can’t be possibly liked by everybody. He makes good money out of his image, but would he make less if we saw a bit more of his true feelings?”
Djokovic was able to step away from this unnecessary banter decidedly, without much attention focused upon him. Becker’s recent comments, in the concluding stages of the 2016 season, as a way of analysing Djokovic’s performances however must have been hard for the Belgrade native to ignore.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Becker had gone on to say, “I thought Novak in the semi-final against Nishikori (at the World Tour Finals in London) played the way he played in the first six months of the year. That’s how well he can play when everything is in place. I couldn’t believe how badly he played on Sunday given the circumstances. That was probably, under my guidance, the worst match he has played and two weeks on I still don’t know what happened.”
Becker could regard this as an open and honest assessment of Djokovic’s failure in the last match that mattered this year. But it was a remonstration, watered-down as it was, that should have been done within a private setting, between Djokovic and him. While the inner workings of Djokovic and his team will never see the light of the day, Becker’s proclivity to overshoot himself verbally could have seen Djokovic take the final call on calling time on their joint venture, taking a decisive stance through his actions rather than his words.