Ballast for the Spirit

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by Pete Bodo

Novak Djokovic will be among the elite handful of contenders at Roland Garros, and he may be the man with the best shot at ending Rafael Nadal's remarkable, undefeated run at the French Grand Slam. Nadal is 28-0 in Paris (numbers only Bjorn Borg can match), and I've heard many people say that we shouldn't read too much into Roger Federer's recent win over Nadal in Paris.

I'm not sure I'd be so cavalier about that last bit. Sure the court played fast and the tournament took place at a high altitude, both factors that probably favored Federer. That's not to be discounted. In fact, the other day Patrick McEnroe told me that when the USA met Spain in that 2008 Davis Cup semifinal in Madrid (at the  Plaza de Toros Las Ventas), Nadal was visibly upset by the fast speed of the court, and expressed his displeasure freely. You may remember that Rafa played the first match, against US rookie Sam Querrey (who won that first set in a tiebreaker before Nadal dialed in his game).

"The ball really does fly there," Pat told me. "The difference is not just real, it's really noticeable."

So Rafa can definitely tell himself that conditions will be significantly different and more favorable to him in Paris next week, but my own feeling is that in a rivalry like Federer vs. Nadal neither of the principals takes anything for granted. The fact that Roger won their last match, and on clay, is there in Rafa's mind, a small ticking thing that may - or may not - go BOOM! You can't expect Rafa to admit that Federer's authoritative play last Sunday may have taken him by surprise and put a little hiccup in his planning. Tennis pros are notoriously poker-faced. But to some degree Roger's win meant something, even though the shooting script (co-writtten with Toni Nadal) goes something like this Roger is a great player, I'm not at all surprised, but next week is a different blah-blah-blah. . .

The bottom line is that when you have two proud players who so thoroughly dominate most of their peers that they're more joined than remote from each other, everything counts. Everything can be significant, albeit not necessarily so. It just as much of a mistake to blow off the Madrid final with circumstantial excuses (fatigue, court speed, altitude, etc.) as it is to rationalize the way Federer lost that ghastly Roland Garros final last year. With two guys like this, everything counts. Everything is stored in the operating system and can affect the operation of the hard drive or one or another program. Guys like Rafa get to be guys like Roger (think about it. . .) precisely because they take nothing for granted, and when they deliver ultra-conservative cliches about their chances against any given player, they aren't engaging in false modesty. Eternal vigilance isn't just the price of liberty, it's also the price of dominance in tennis.

And this brings us around to Djokovic, who established himself as the third wheel in the Federer-Nadal rivalry last year, until the wheel fell off. But it appears to be back on again, and Djokovic is jostling and elbow-slamming Andy Murray, both of them right in thick of the  hunt. You saw Djokovic's remarkable semifinal match against Nadal in Madrid, right? Nadal swept away three match points in that one, a match that established a new Master Series record when it finally ended at four hours, three minutes. Say what you will about the speed of the court or the heat of the sun, it's unlikely that Nadal walked away from that one thinking: That didn't mean nothin', guy just had a good day. . .

So the two men who had match points against Nadal in Madrid, one that converted and one that didn't, loom as his principal challengers for the title in Paris. And while Murray was on fire for much of this year, I imagine that both Rafa and Roger would prefer to see him, rather than Djokovic, plopped down in his half of the draw. Djokovic may be more dangerous than Murray for two reasons: he's been there before as a Grand slam champion (having won the Australian Open of 2008), and because he seems to be building emotional momentum that could propel him through the draw in Paris.

Djokovic got off to a fairly horrible start this year and failing to defend his title in Australia was the least of it. His game was unraveling, and his confidence at low ebb. It all started with a change of racket, from a Wilson to a new Head frame. Like so many other players before him, Djokovic realized that no matter how much money was put on the table, there was one thing no new sponsor could not guarantee: satisfaction with his product, even if, technically, there was nothing wrong with it.

As Djokovic said during the Australian Open: "I have changed rackets in past, but when I was a junior. The level of play is really -- it's different from a professional level. As the third player of the world, of course the defending champion here, it was a pretty risky move. But I already decided to do that, so I take the responsibility and I just move on. I think I found a good rhythm and good feel with the (new) racket. Hopefully it's going to stay that way."

The **phrasing Djokovic used was telling, **and it sheds light on his nature.  I take the responsibility. . . he said, as if, a) it needed saying, or b) someone would think otherwise. So don't let those imitations Djokovic does fool you; this is one serious, responsible tennis player. Too serious, sometimes, as you can tell by his press conferences, which often are conducted with a kind of gravitas that doesn't seem quite right for a sporting occasion. If you shut your eyes, his tone and delivery seem less like those of a happy-go-lucky tennis player (think Rafa) than the cabinet-level minister responsible for the successful completion of the *Trans-Serbian Hydro-Electric and Agricultural Irrigation Project.
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And this, in some ways, reflects the reality and truth of Djokovic's position in the eyes of his countrymen, in a nation where the sense of kinship and patriotism is profound, unshakeable, and  highly volatile. While the Spanish may embrace Rafael as the commonly owned Iberian kid brother, and the Swiss can hold up Roger Federer as a symbol of the nation's dispassionate dedication to excellence and reliability, the Serbs appear to look upon Djokovic a something far more earthy and powerful, a hero. Someone with the proverbial fate of the nation in his hands. Serbian people to some degree depend on Djokovic, it seems, or they do so to a much greater than on either of their two great female players, Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic. This is hardly surprising; if Serbia had a gender, it would most decidedly be male.

It helps to think along these lines when it comes to the Serbia Open, the tournament owned and run by the star's family. It seems that Djokovic wouldn't settle for giving his often beleaguered countrymen something positive to talk about over their morning coffee and the newspaper, he actually gave them tennis - a game, a calling-card to present to other members of the family of nations, the concrete walls and steel beams and crushed brick courts and net posts and locker rooms that, added together, add up to something tangible, something every Serb can actually enjoy and experience in a way that isn't available to the most diehard Spanish Rafa fan or diehard Swiss supporter of Federer.

All of this was in the planning stages early in the year, and perhaps it added to the pressure Djokovic felt as the defender at the Australian Open. And let's remember, no less an authority than Pete Sampras has said that the hardest thing in tennis is defending a major - especially a first major. If you want to see just how hard it is, flip through the record books and see just how few people managed it.

Djokovic pretty much fell apart in Australia; the official version is that he withdrew from his quarterfinal match with Andy Roddick due to exhaustion. Does anybody want to track down the last time a defending Grand Slam champion withdrew? The first leg of the season basically was a disaster, and while Djokovic won Dubai not long thereafter, it would be his only title during the spring swing on his best surface (hard courts). And although he did make the final of Miami, he was strikingly uncertain of himself in a loss to Murray.

It seems that Djokovic was able to shrug off that loss, because in his next two events (Monte Carlo and Rome) he played the championship match against the undisputed king of clay, Nadal. In Rome, the road to the final led through Federer, but Djokovic gave it the gas and won. At that point, Djokovic made a strong move - the kind of pro-active move many Federer fans wish their own paragon had made, at various points over the past 12 months.

Djokovic hired a new fitness coach, Gebhard Phil-Gritsch - the trainer who shepherded Thomas "the Animal" Muster to the world no. 1 ranking. "I felt that I needed a change," Djokovic said, while denying that the new hire had anything to do with his loss of condition in Melbourne.  "I needed something new to improve on."

And lest anyone mistake Djokovic for a slacker, he elaborated, offering a confession: "Well, I do work, you know. I don't think it was all issue about my physical preparation, condition. It was mentally, as well, if in some period I didn't believe in my quality. I had some ups and downs with the results, but now I'm confident enough. I know that I deserve to be here (in the Rome final), so I think it's all coming together."

Djokovic's next event was the Djokovic Family Open, aka Belgrade, or the Serbia Open. The idea that a player would just up and buy out a tournament (Amersfoort) and re-locate it in another venue under another name is a little strange, and the potential conflicts-of-interest are obvious. (At the end of one Australian Opien presser he fielded this question "Nadal never asked for a wildcard, but he could still play?" Djokovic replied: "We refused him because we had some priorities." Not having been there, I presume this was one of those You had to be there. . . jokes, but it makes the point.)

Djokovic didn't have to do any of the grunt work, being the de facto owner and host of the tournament. Still, the hopes of his countrymen were at a fevered pitch and the pressure on Djokovic not to disappoint was enormous. Enroute to the final, Djokovic beat two Serbs, Janko Tipsarevic and Viktor Troicki. Djokovic won the first set against Janko, but lost the second; however, a national crisis was averted when Tipsarevic folded up his tent quietly, losing the third set at love.. Djokovic sailed on, and ultimately beat Lukasz Kubot (no. 179) for the title and earned a handsome trophy. He presumably paid for that trophy out of his own pocket, so did it mean more, or less?

Winning the tournament was a demonstration not only of skill, but of Djokovic's innate sense of responsibility, and his ability to exercise and exploit it. That's marvelous ballast for the spirit of a tennis player, who usually operates with a much more narrow definition of responsibility - one best summed up as the mandate to do whatever is best for your game and to hail with everything else. It takes a different sort of maturity to undertake and make good on obligations in a realm larger than your pure self-interest, and Djokovic seems to have that sort of seasoning. Frankly, his serious nature is more appealing when he's actually got something substantial - and greater than himself -  to be serious about.

There's a real payoff to that degree of adult behavior in a sport where everyone wears short pants, although it doesn't usually manifest itself early in a player's career. Let's face it - to have the ambition, energy and fearlessness of youth is quite enough when it comes to winning tennis matches.  But sometimes - against certain players, in certain borderline situations, under the duress of withering pressure - any asset or shortcoming of personality is enough to tip the balance, one way or the other.

For Djokovic, a player who's experienced something like the Cliff Notes version of a career so far in 2009, I think I know which way the balance will tip.