Collecting my thoughts after watching Novak Djokovic capture a 19th Grand Slam singles title and thus move up to only one title behind both Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the all time race for supremacy, my appreciation for this man and his multitude of achievements and attributes has reached a new level. Here he is, half way to a 2021 Grand Slam, poised to make even more history, zeroing in on the majors with all consuming intensity. It is hard to imagine that he won’t make a spirited bid to establish himself as the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to sweep all four majors in a single season.
But let’s pause briefly to consider what he just accomplished at Roland Garros. By winning the French Open for the second time, he has established himself commendably as the first man since Laver to take all four majors at least twice in the course of a career. Some would call it a second career Grand Slam, but the bottom line is that Djokovic has realized a feat that neither Federer nor Nadal has managed. Federer will surely never win a second French Open, and Nadal has been agonizingly close to garnering a second title at the Australian Open, falling in the finals four times “Down Under” against Djokovic (2012 and 2019), Stan Wawrinka (2014), and Federer (2017). Against both Djokovic in the former and Federer in the latter, Nadal was up a break in the fifth set but his wishes went unrewarded. Will he win in Melbourne again? Probably not.
Laver, of course, captured his first Grand Slam in 1962 and his second seven years later. The latter was a singular feat and worthy of immense admiration. The only other male player to put his name on the trophy at least twice at all of the “Big Four” events was Roy Emerson in the sixties—all in amateur tennis. No one else but Djokovic has done it strictly in the Open Era. It is another major feather in his cap made all the more remarkable when one considers how the redoubtable Nadal has monopolized Roland Garros for a good long while. He had won all but three of the previous 16 French Open editions, and had lost only two matches on his cherished surface while retiring once in 2016 with a wrist injury.
Djokovic had claimed his first Roland Garros crown five years ago with a hard fought final round victory over Andy Murray. But the Serbian was stifled by Nadal three times in the finals, losing to the Spaniard in 2012, 2014, and 2020. In turn, Djokovic lost to a soaring Stan Wawrinka in the 2015 title round contest. And altogether against Nadal, he had lost seven of the eight times they had collided in Paris prior to this year.
And yet, he not only became the first player to upend Nadal twice on the Parisian clay, but he also established himself as the first ever to do it after losing the first set. The Djokovic-Nadal semifinal this past week was a beauty, filled with magnificently contested and imaginative rallies from beginning to end, enhanced by the competitive mettle displayed on both sides of the net.
I don’t agree with some of the authorities who are calling this classic encounter an epic. It was, to be sure, an evocative performance from Djokovic and one of the finest triumphs of his illustrious career. But looking at the contest and comparing it to other Djokovic-Nadal duels, it does not measure up in its entirety. Their 2012 Australian Open final round skirmish was unquestionably superior, going down to the wire before Djokovic prevailed 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7 (5), 7-5 as the Serbian somehow survived after Nadal served with a 4-2, 30-15 lead in the fifth. The 2013 Roland Garros semifinal won by Nadal 9-7 in the fifth set was another gem that was superior to this one in 2021, and so was the 2018 Wimbledon semifinal with Djokovic overcoming his old rival 10-8 in the fifth set on the fabled Centre Court.
But Djokovic’s 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-2 triumph in their latest showdown was still a dandy. It falls short of an epic in my mind because the first set was played with too much apprehension from both players. Djokovic had two break points in the first game and a 40-15 lead in the second, but did not exploit those openings. Before he knew it, Nadal led 5-0. The spectacle seemed eerily similar to the 2020 final when Nadal obliterated Djokovic 6-0, 6-2, 7-5.
But, this time around in the penultimate round, things played out differently. Djokovic took three games in a row, saved six set points and gradually found his game in that crucial span. I believe in many ways that is where he won the match; both players moved into the second set knowing the climate had been altered and recognizing that the battle was fully on. Nadal realized he could have closed out the first set sooner. His failure to do so surely weighed heavily in his mind.
Djokovic had clearly found his range and Nadal’s insecurity started to surface as the conditions changed. The evening air was cooler, making it harder for Nadal to get the high bound he wanted on his topspin forehand. And the Serbian was raising the temperature of his game considerably. They exchanged service breaks early, but then Djokovic regained control as he peppered away with his crosscourt forehand angles to pull Nadal off the court time and again on the Spaniard’s backhand side. That pattern propelled Djokovic through that second set and into the third. Yet finishing off that second set was no facile feat for Djokovic. At 4-2 he erased three break points against him and he had to save two more when he served the set out at 5-3. It was hard work but Djokovic was back deservedly to one set all.
Make no mistake about it: the third set was colossal in terms of the outcome, and it was the single best set that Nadal and Djokovic have ever played against each other on any surface. It was immensely inspiring to watch.
The two titans pushed each other to the hilt in pursuit of a two sets to one lead, displaying a dazzling brand of shotmaking, imposing their wills, hoping they could move out in front and carry the momentum into the fourth set.
Nadal was frequently under extraordinary stress. Djokovic broke for a 3-2 lead but Nadal retaliated for 3-3 with one of his signature forehand down the line winners. Nevertheless, Djokovic took control again to reach 5-3, and then served for the set at 5-4. He went to 30-0 but missed an easy forehand down the line. Nadal made Djokovic pay a substantial price for that mistake, breaking back for 5-5 with a stream of winners including a backhand pass up the line and a forehand winner down the line.
The drama was not over. Twice in the eleventh game the Spaniard found himself break point down, but he saved one with a bounce smash winner and the other with a forehand down the line winner. After moving to 6-5 and heading for the changeover, Nadal wore the expression of a man convinced he was going to win this tennis match.
When Djokovic served at 5-6, the Serbian was down set point and missed his first delivery. But he responded to this propitious moment with typical fortitude. His backhand down the line drop shot was immaculately measured, and even a determined Nadal could not get it back into play. Djokovic held on for 6-6, and appropriately the set was settled in a tie-break.
Nadal opened with a double fault but soon the sequence was locked at 3-3. Djokovic connected with a scintillating forehand angled crosscourt winner. Then Nadal took the net away from Djokovic and had the court wide open for a forehand volley—only to punch it long.
The 13-time French Open victor produced an excellent forehand drop shot winner to narrow Djokovic’s tie-break lead to 5-4 but the top seed followed with a clutch ace down the T and a beautifully directed forehand down the line response to a Nadal drop shot that was unmanageable for the Spaniard. Djokovic had at last sealed this astonishing set 7-4 in the tie-break. He trailed 2-0 in the fourth set but then collected no fewer than six games in a row, taking 24 of the last 30 points in the process. Djokovic raised his career record against Nadal to 30-28 with his 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-2 win.
In the final, he took on Stefanos Tsitsipas for the eighth time in their careers. Djokovic had been victorious in five of their previous seven meetings, including a five set Roland Garros semifinal in 2020. No one knew—not even Djokovic himself—how well he would recover from his four hour and eleven minute extravaganza with Nadal, but Djokovic looked fresh enough early on. Had he exploited two break point opportunities in the opening game of the match, Djokovic might well have been off and running.
But Tsitsipas held on with three consecutive aces for 1-0. Djokovic was breezing along on his own serve until the tenth game, when he saved a set point by out-dueling Tsitsipas in a 25 stroke exchange. He held on for 5-5 and broke in the following game. Seemingly, the set was over.
But at the changeover, Djokovic appeared to lose his focus. The umpire had given Tsitsipas a time violation warning not long before and Djokovic made his case that the players should be given some latitude since they had to fetch their own towels. He proceeded to play a terrible game on his serve and Tsitsipas made it back to 6-6. In the ensuing tie-break, Djokovic trailed 0-4 and 2-5 but then took four points in a row and reached set point with Tsitsipas serving at 5-6. Djokovic’s return was well struck off the forehand but Tsitsipas flicked it back brilliantly down the line for a winner.
The Greek stylist took the set 8-6 in that tie-break and then took apart Djokovic 6-2 in the second. Tsitsipas was on the verge of an uplifting triumph in his first Grand Slam tournament final. But Djokovic was soon revitalized, turning the skirmish back in his own direction permanently when he broke in a marathon six deuce game for 3-1 in the third set with a bruising forehand inside in return that coaxed Tsitsipas into an error. He secured that break and, suddenly, it was a different kind of match altogether.
Djokovic had left the court for a locker room break after the second set and that had left him revitalized. He rolled through the rest of the third set and never looked back. Tsitsipas had no Plan B. Once Djokovic started hitting out more freely and serving with greater authority, Tsitsipas was dazed and dispirited. Djokovic broke the No. 5 seed twice on his way to a 3-0 fourth set lead with the persistency of his returns and better court coverage.
The primary problem for Tsitsipas was his inability to make any dent whatsoever in Djokovic’s service games. The world No. 1 dropped only three points in four service games across the entire fourth set. Nothing much changed in the fifth set as Djokovic moved inexorably toward victory.
On his way to serving for the match at 5-4 in that final set, Djokovic won 16 of 19 points in his four service games. Meanwhile, he was pressuring Tsitsipas constantly. He nearly broke in the opening game before doing so in the third. Coasting along on his own delivery, he destroyed Tsitsipas by going to the heavy kicker in the ad court as a first serve, setting up piercing forehands time and again. Tsitsipas never had an answer to that tactic.
At 2-4, Tsitsipas fell behind 15-40, but drew Djokovic in with a drop shot and won that point with a high volley into the open court. He held on there but Djokovic went to 5-3 with a love game. Serving for the match at 5-4, Djokovic was clearly tense but he remained disciplined, dynamic and unshakable. Despite one botched volley at 15-0 and an errant crosscourt backhand at 30-15, he moved to 40-30 before Tsitsipas struck a golden backhand down the line for a winner. Djokovic refused to be rattled, defending skillfully out of his forehand corner twice and then driving a forehand down the line for a clean winner. On his second match point, he moved foreword behind a forehand swing volley and then emphatically put away a high forehand volley crosscourt.
And so Djokovic succeeded 6-7 (6), 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 in four hours and eleven minutes— precisely the same time it took him to oust Nadal. Over the last four rounds, Djokovic had done some very impressive work, rallying from two sets to love down to defeat Lorenzo Mussetti in five sets, stopping Matteo Berrettini in four sets, removing Nadal in the penultimate round and capping it all off by staging his spectacular comeback against Tsitsipas.
The last player to win a major and twice rally from two sets to love down during the tournament was the American Ted Schroeder at Wimbledon in 1949. Djokovic is the first fellow in the Open Era to realize that considerable feat. In addition, Djokovic raised his record in career five set matches to a remarkable 35-10, and lifted his winning record in Grand Slam finals to 19-10. Moreover, he joined an elite cast of competitors who have triumphed in major finals from two sets to love down. Bjorn Borg—who greeted Djokovic at the presentation ceremony at Roland Garros—did it in the 1974 Paris final against Manolo Orantes. Ivan Lendl overcame John McEnroe ten years later in the same fashion at Roland Garros. Andre Agassi completed his career sweep at the majors with a 1999 final round comeback against Andrei Medvedev after going down two sets. Gaston Gaudio upended Guillermo Coria from two sets behind in 2004. And then last year at the US Open, Dominic Thiem was trailing Alexander Zverev by two sets to love but he came back to win. Those kinds of title round comebacks are very rare indeed.
Now Djokovic has taken the first two majors of the year, fueling a lot of talk in the tennis community about a Grand Slam. He also won the Australian and French Opens back to back in 2016 but then fell in the third round of Wimbledon against Sam Querrey, which was a shocking loss. And yet, he had at that time won four majors in a row dating back to the middle of the previous season. No one in men’s tennis had swept four in a row since Laver won his Grand Slam in 1969. His range of ambitions was diminished at that point.
Circumstances are different now. Djokovic will be more sharply focussed on his goals after claiming major title No. 19. He won the last two Wimbledon singles titles in 2018 and 2019, so he will be awfully eager for a third title in a row. Over the years, he has grown increasingly comfortable on the grass, a surface which rewards his unique kind of agility, his court awareness and his capacity to keep his shots consistently low and deep.
Will he win the Grand Slam, or perhaps even a “Golden Slam” if he can manage to win a gold medal at the Olympic Games? I would not rule it out. He has made it abundantly clear that the majors now are more important to him than ever. They are his first and, in many ways, only priority.
His triumphs in Melbourne and Paris have given Djokovic the conviction he needs to wrap up this season in style. Winning both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open may be a tall order on top of what he has already done, but I believe he will be very self assured on the lawns this year. He will not yet be thinking about a Grand Slam when he is in Great Britain. Winning Wimbledon would put him on level ground at last alongside Nadal and Federer with 20 major titles and that alone will be foremost on his mind.
I make him the clear favorite and believe he will collect the most prestigious crown in tennis for the sixth time. If that happens, he would head to New York knowing full well that he has had very hard luck at the U.S. Open. He has been in eight finals on the hard courts he loves so much, but has claimed the title only three times. If Djokovic is victorious at Wimbledon, his desire to win the Open will be insatiable. And if someone has upset him in London, Djokovic will want to make amends and demonstrate his big match superiority once more at the Open; either way, he will be very difficult to beat at Flushing Meadows.
Djokovic was typically forthright when asked about his thoughts on the Grand Slam following his win over Tsitsipas in the French Open final. He said, “Everything is possible. I mean, definitely in my case I can say that what I’ve been through in my career, in my life, this journey has been terrific so far. I’ve achieved some things that a lot of people thought it would not be possible for me to achieve. I did put myself in a good position to go for the Grand Slam. But you know, I was in this position in 2016 as well. It ended up in a third round loss at Wimbledon. This year we have only two weeks between the first round of Wimbledon and the finals here, which is not ideal because you go from really two completely different surfaces, trying to make that transition as smooth as possible. Obviously I will enjoy this win and then think about Wimbledon in a few days time. I don’t have an issue to say that I am going for the title at Wimbledon. Of course I am. Hopefully I can use this confidence that I have right now and take it into Wimbledon. Then let’s take it from there.”
Djokovic’s entire purpose in his professional life is where he ends up in the hierarchy of history. He has spoken with complete candor and clarity about what he wants to achieve. He has already surpassed Federer for most weeks at No. 1 in the world and is at 325 and counting. He is now well on his way to breaking Pete Sampras’s record for most year-end finishes at No. 1, pushing hard to reside at the top for the seventh time when the curtain closes on 2021. He will almost certainly finish ahead of Federer and Nadal in his career head to head appointments with them. At the moment he is 30-28 with the Spaniard and 27-23 over Federer. He is the only player to win every Masters 1000 event at least once.
And so it is all about Grand Slam tournaments from here on in. The feeling grows that Novak Djokovic will not be looking back on his career in a decade or so with any reservations whatsoever.
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Steve Flink has been reporting full time on tennis since 1974, when he went to work for World Tennis Magazine. He stayed at that publication until 1991. He wrote for Tennis Week Magazine from 1992-2007, and has been a columnist for tennis.com and tennischannel.com for the past 14 years. Flink has written four books on tennis including “Dennis Ralston’s Tennis Workbook” in 1987; “The Greatest Tennis Matches of the Twentieth Century” in 1999; “The Greatest Tennis Matches of All Time” in 2012; and “Pete Sampras: Greatness Revisited”. The Sampras book was released in September of 2020 and can be purchased on Amazon.com. Flink was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017.
