NOVAK DJOKOVIC: The Djoker is Back

Novak Djokovic with the Wimbledon Trophy 2018

We expect our tennis heroes to be superhuman, immune to the afflictions that plague us mere mortals. They exist only to show us that the impossible can be conquered; that mountains can be moved, demons may be vanquished, miracles shall be claimed. The myth of Roger Federer barely breaking a sweat as he flicks his one-handed backhand wonder across the net, or the certainty that Rafael Nadal is always on the cusp of a turnaround even when he’s two sets and a break down, and the belief that Novak Djokovic is, finally, at the end of his Grand Slam drought—we have seen, and so we believe.

The Serbian’s two-year slump following the 2016 French Open came at a time when he was expected to win trophies by merely turning up. He beat Andy Murray to win the Australian Open that year, followed by blazing runs at Indian Wells and Miami, the latter making him surpass Federer in the all-time ATP prize money race. The rivals were beginning to show cracks in their invincibility, but Djokovic showed no signs of letting up. His win against Murray, again, this time at the French Open final, gave rise to the ‘Nole Slam’ moniker—as the trophy-holding champion of all four Slams at the same time. It looked like it would be a long reign. The US Open final defeat to the other Swiss, Stan Wawrinka, was put down to a blip, the usual year-end fatigue that fells

SHREYA CHAKRAVERTTY

so many players who start the year strong.

But all the introspection done by Djokovic in the early parts of 2017 led him to one inexplicable conclusion: the foundation was the problem. In a move that he himself called ‘shock therapy’, he parted ways with his long-time coach Marian Vajda, trainer Gebhard Phil-Greitch and physiotherapist Miljan Amanovic. “I want to continue raising the level of my game and stamina and this is a continuous process,” he told the media at the time. “I enjoy this journey, it feels like I am starting something new again... I am a hunter and my biggest goal is to find the winning spark on the court again... I have so much faith in this process

and that’s why I will take time to find the right person who I can connect with professionally. I have been on the tour long enough to know how to manage daily routines and I don’t want to rush my decision.”

Despite the carefully worded sound bites from both Djokovic and Vajda, the decision made little tennis sense. Together with the fact that even after this culling, his ‘love and peace’ coach Pepe Imaz continued to be in Djokovic’s corner, there was definitely more here than met the eye. There were backstage whispers about troubles in his personal life, hush-hush allegations that Imaz was in fact part of a cult that was brainwashing Djokovic to take extremely dodgy professional decisions, and a video doing the rounds of a group-therapy session consisting of his brother Marko, himself, Imaz and many others, in which Imaz is seen exhorting the audience to let ‘love envelop every part of their lives’. In the two-hourlong recording, when Djokovic takes the microphone, he speaks about harmony and connections, souls and meditation. Perhaps if the camera had moved slightly further back, it would have panned on Vajda rolling his eyes.

One of the conflicts in this particular coach–player relationship was apparently the presence of Imaz, with reports later emerging that Vajda had insisted the Spaniard’s exit was a condition for him to return. Djokovic defused the tension with another carefully worded press release denying what Vajda had said, but that didn’t do much to paper the cracks.

The occasional fad therapy clearly has much appeal for the Serb; in fact, one such move was responsible for him developing into a multiple Slam champion from the injury (and doubt) prone athlete he once was—putting a gluten-free diet in place eliminated many of his medical complaints. In addition, hypoxic chambers for recovery (or sleeping pods, as they are more commonly known), Watsu water therapy and meditation practices have been among his other wellness choices. “It has always been, not just for tennis, but in general there’s always something that you can improve and get better at as a person and as a player,” he said in an interview during the 2018 Australian Open. Does this quest for self-improvement show the man beyond the tennis player, one who is struggling with the question that plagues all modern humans: what is the meaning of life and how do we find it? Perhaps he thought a life coach was the answer, but there was no way the workings of the inner soul could translate into success on the tennis court.

The Serbian’s two-year slump following the 2016 French Open came at a time when he was expected to win trophies by merely turning up. He beat Andy Murray to win the Australian Open that year, followed by blazing runs at Indian Wells and Miami, the latter making him surpass Federer in the all-time ATP prize money race.

Andre Agassi, the posterboy for mental transformations in this sport, who, not too long ago, conquered chaos to achieve calm (and championships) was brought into the mix in May 2017, but Team Djokovic made for a sorry picture at his forced early end to the season—he retired in his Wimbledon quarterfinal against Tomas Berdych due to an elbow injury and shortly after announced that he was done for the season.

There needed to be a reunion with Vajda and a return to the good old basics of the game for the promise to return, and for the realisation that you don’t fix what isn’t broken. “He called me from the Dominican Republic,” Vajda told Tennis.com. “I caught him full of doubt. He was not sure about the way his game should look. He suggested I could coach him again. He felt he could not find the right team.”

By the Monte Carlo Masters in April, Vajda was back. The year 2018 had begun on the lowest of keys, but built up to a crescendo by the time it ended—with the number 1 ranking and two Slams under his belt. It was no coincidence that Subsequently, Djokovic made the year his own—a remarkable fact if we consider his performance up to the halfway mark, a period in which he let journeyman players like South Korea’s Hyeon Chung and the Sicilian Marco Cecchinato make headlines at his expense, at the Australian Open and French Open respectively.

A few days after the loss to the Korean, whose court coverage seemed to have been inspired by the Djokovic of old, the Serb announced his intention to undergo elbow surgery. After his recovery and return, he didn’t make it past the third round at Miami, Barcelona or Monte Carlo, but at the Rome Masters, a hard-won quarterfinal against Nishikori put him in the semi-final against Nadal. On clay, though, any match against the Spaniard is a foregone conclusion, and this was no different in terms of the eventual victor, but it looked as if Djokovic’s fighting spark had finally been reignited.

The second Slam of the year, and a second chance to salvage 2018 in Paris, but Cecchinato ensured that it would not be the Serb who challenged Nadal that year. The scoreline after the four-set match read 3-6, 6-7 (4),

6-1, 6-7 (11) in favour of the Italian. And at the press conference after his defeat, a weary and irritated Djokovic refused to confirm if he would even take the court during the grass season. “I don’t know,” was his short response. And then, when the line of questioning persisted, he said: “I don’t know if I will play on grass.”

Wimbledon was a major plot point in a previous Nole winning streak in 2011, when he beat Nadal in four sets to claim his first trophy at his selfproclaimed ‘most-dreamed-about major’. This time around, the same opponent provided a real test in the last four. The result after the secondlongest Wimbledon semi-final ever to be played—5 hours, 15 minutes— and the straight-set win over South African Kevin Anderson in the final had finally added to his Slam count. Number 13, and never was it luckier. “It’s easy to talk now and look back at it and be kind of grateful, but I really am grateful to go through these mixed emotions, turbulences as well mentally, moments of doubt and disappointment and frustration, anger,” he said. “It’s usually in a struggle that you get to know yourself, you get to have an opportunity to rise like a phoenix and evolve and get better.” Djokovic was feeling all the emotions, but he had got here with clinical precision.

The stern words Vajda had had with him before agreeing to return to the camp tell the rest of the story. “We wanted him to play tennis not as a philosophy but as a practice,” he told Tennis.com in the same interview. “I was not wanting Novak to be influenced by people who know what tennis is but don’t understand the mentality of a top athlete. Tennis cannot be based on a philosophy. It’s a mano a mano sport.”

The new-old Team Novak trained their sights on the US Open Series, and focused hard. Business as usual, and training as usual, and, hence, results as usual. Make that better

The Serbian is back on top of the rankings

than usual en route to the US Open. After beating quality names on his way to the Cincinnati final – the only Masters tournament he hadn’t won before -- Djokovic came up against Roger Federer -- the GOAT himself and a x-time Cincinnati champion -- and beat him: in straight sets, no less, in their first meeting since the 2016 Australian Open final. But this win that earned him the Career Golden Masters was just a sideshow for the big one.

At Flushing Meadows, after steadying himself following wobbly displays against Martin Fucsovics and Tennys Sandgren, just the kind of gritty journeymen who had made it a habit to topple him at the start of the year, Djokovic ran head first into the eternal emotional favourite himself, Juan Martin del Potro. But the Serb kept his eyes on the prize and got Slam No. 14, which came with the No. 3 ranking and a place level with Pete Sampras on the Slam count.

The lopsided numbers indicate the distance that loomed between the ghosts of his 2018 past and present—1055 points at the half-way point in the calendar (after Roland Garros) and 9045 points by the end; world No. 22 in April, and No. 1 in October. Even though he lost in the final of the year-ending ATP Masters to Alexander Zverev, that is not the main talking point when summing up the Serb’s performances this year.

His fitness trainer Gritsch spoke about the kind of work they had put in to reach this far. “In May, none of us in the team had thought this was possible,’ he said during an interview. “Novak was really in trouble. There was a lot missing in the fitness area . . . But above all, he also had mental problems because he did not know where he actually is.”

2018 has been a game of two halves for Djokovic. The off-season in the sport is notorious for being far too short, and before the pros know it’s over, the pop and fizz of new tennis ball cans become familiar sounds. His social media posts are a collage of joyous family time and R&R pursuits that look thoroughly enjoyable, but one suspects he might well be going over gameplans in some corner of his mind, looking forward to 2019 and picking up where he left off.