Nole's Priorities
*** 
I was a little surprised earlier this year when Novak Djokovic revealed that his main priorities for the season were the French Open and the London Olympics—an admission that began to take on greater meaning, and was cited more frequently, as those events approached on the calendar.
It's somewhat unusual for tennis players to set such specific ambitions, or at least to declare them. So much in tennis depends on a volatile combination of seemingly conflicting elements: Sustained form, and form of the day. One of the reasons there isn't that much tanking in tennis is because losing on any day is just plain bad karma, and losing begets losing just as surely as winning begets winning.
The proven, safe approach is to give your all each time you step on the court, and let the rest take care of itself. Sure, a guy who's lacking one major for a career Grand Slam is going to be extra keen to win that event. But usually it's not at the expense of his determination at other events, which is the implication when you name specific goals. Besides, when you establish and announce such targets, you invite pressure. Some players flourish under that burden of expectations, self-imposed and otherwise. I'm not sure that Novak Djokovic is one of them.
Djokovic's attitude rolling into the clay-court season could be trotted out as an excuse for those two losses he suffered in dirt finals before Roland Garros, both to Rafael Nadal, the man the Serb deeply wounded and unseated as world No. 1 in 2011. Those matches could hardly qualify as representative of the state of the rivalry if Djokovic's self-described "priority"—his word—was the French Open.
While I was somewhat puzzled by Djokovic's approach to the year from the get-go, his attitude did work some of its intended magic on me. Each time Djokovic lost to Nadal a part of me thought, Well, coming off that spectacular 2011, I can see where Novak doesn't feel obliged to run the table. It will be interesting to see just how different a player he'll be when the French Open rolls around.
That part of me was fully prepared to see a different and deadlier Djokovic slash his way through the draw and, perhaps, battle his way through a magnificent six-hour epic in Paris with Nadal. While Djokovic gets an enormous amount of credit for getting to that final, the player I saw there was a surprisingly pale imitation of Nole, the Hammer of the Tennis Gods. He looked hesitant, uncomfortable, on-edge, and pessimistic too much of the time. His histrionics were like ambrosia for Nadal's opportunism.
Bad body language doesn't lie, and at times during the French Open final Djokovic acted and looked like he considered his own situation hopeless. Of course, that didn't prevent him from playing numerous brilliant points; after all, once the ball was in play, Djokovic acted with both the instincts and training of a superb champion. But I never sensed that Djokovic was on top of things, or in command of his fate. And the weirdest thing about that was that Nadal didn't, either. In some ways, it was either man's match to lose, and perhaps Djokovic was more willing to let it go.
As the eventual winner, Nadal, said of his own mental state: "For the final, I was obviously a bit more nervous than usual. I started playing very well in the beginning, 3?Love, 30?Love. I made a mistake. Then the set became more complicated. Then my game was no longer as clean as it used to be. . . I think the first three games (of the first day) were my best level."
There was no trace of irony in that admission.
It all worked out okay for Nadal in the end, though, and we came to find out that it was partly because deep down, Djokovic counted himself lucky to be in the Roland Garros final, fortunate to be facing the man he would call the best-ever player on clay and—priorities be danged!—content to let things take their natural course. Which on red clay means another trophy for Nadal to bite. Djokovic said as much, in his post-final presser: "I’m just happy to be in this position, you know, to be playing finals at Roland Garros. I could easily have lost the match in fourth round or even more against Tsonga, but I managed to come to the finals for the first time in my career."
Was I wrong to assume that his priority had to do with winning the title, not just having a good tournament?
Nadal himself came to Djokovic's defense when a reporter in the post-match presser asked him about those uncharacteristic, critical double faults Nole tossed in at some fairly crucial stages of the match. He said, "If I say something wrong about Novak probably gonna be a big mistake, because don’t forget that he won in Australia, he won in Miami, played semifinals in Indian Wells losing 7?6 in the third, playing final in Monte Carlo and final in Rome and final here. So his season has been great, and the double faults, that’s only coincidence, in my opinion. Don’t forget that last year he saved unbelievable match in the semifinals of U.S. Open."
It was good of Nadal to be so charitable, not that we would expect anything less of him. But his analysis just underscores the feeling that if this tournament was a priority, Djokovic didn't really handle it with the expected, requisite skill, determination, and confidence—not unless he was content to get to the final and take a whipping from Nadal. Turns out there was no new or different Djokovic afoot in Philippe Chatrier; if anything, he looked less dialed in than in those other finals.
All this is relevant because the rivalry will be resumed next week at Wimbledon, and with all sorts of symbolic resonances. It was at Wimbledon last year that Nole stripped Rafa of the No. 1 ranking, and where his triumph over Nadal in the final demonstrated that he could win a major outside of Australia, and the bag the biggest prize of them all. Now Nadal is closing on Djokovic in the rankings, and fast. They're presently separated by just a little more than the 2000 rankings points awarded to the winner of a Grand Slam tournament.
My feeling is that the defending champ will have his work cut out, unless Nadal is still rattled by what happened last year and Djokovic is still "in his head"—the indications at the French Open were that he is, but Rafa may have booted him out for good over the course of those two sodden, final days.
Whatever the case, Nadal has more reason to feel confident against Djokovic on grass than he does on a hard court. And the final last year was so critical to the Djokovic narrative that it's easy to forget just how good Nadal has been on grass for half-a-dozen years now. Djokovic has not named the defense of his Wimbledon title a priority of the same magnitude as a win at Roland Garros or the Olympic Games. Judging from recent history, that may be a good thing.