MELBOURNE, Australia — Novak Djokovic came to Australia with a mission, or really a series of them.
To win the championship he had won nine times once more. To win a 22nd Grand Slam men’s singles title and draw even with his rival Rafael Nadal at the top of the list. To remove any doubt anyone might have about whether he remains the world’s dominant player, the most commanding player of the last decade and now this one, too. To show the world that the only way to keep him from winning nearly any tennis tournament is to not let him play.
Check. Check. Check. And check.
A year after Australia deported him over his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid-19, Novak Djokovic reclaimed the Grand Slam title he has won more than any other, capturing a record 10th championship at the Australian Open by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) on Sunday.
After one last forehand off Tsitsipas’s racket floated long to end a match that felt lopsided despite the two tiebreakers, Djokovic turned and stared at his relatives and coaches sitting in his box. He pointed to his head, his heart, and then just below his belt, letting the world know it took everything to win one of the most momentous championships in a career that has been filled with them.
Then he put on a jacket with a bright number 22 just under the right side of his collarbone.
“Dare to dream,” Djokovic said to the crowd as he held the winner’s trophy. “Don’t let anyone take that dream away from you.”
He called this triumph “the biggest victory in my life.”
In addition to gaining pole position to surge past the injured star Nadal on the career Grand Slam list — and in the G.O.A.T. debate — Djokovic also reclaimed the top spot in the world rankings, making him, at 35-years-old, the second-oldest player to reach that rarefied realm, behind only Roger Federer who was nearly 37 during his last stint on top of the tennis world. Djokovic turns 36 on May 22. Probably a bad idea to bet against him taking that record from Federer, as he has so many others.
The feat is even more noteworthy given how much tennis Djokovic has had to miss in the last year. He can’t play in the United States because of his refusal to get a Covid-19 shot. Unless there is a change in the policy, he will miss major tournaments in Indian Wells, Calif. once again in March, and the hard court swing this summer, which includes the U.S. Open.
He is either stubborn or a man of principle — more likely both.
Djokovic’s score sheets in this tournament might suggest that these last two weeks were a little more than a vacation Down Under with some tennis thrown in. He dropped only a single set in seven matches. His fourth-round, quarterfinal and semifinal tests were near-complete wipeouts of opponents.
When Djokovic is on like he was in the second week of this tournament, his game is all about firsts. Line-scraping first serves that give him the first point of his service games. First breaks of his opponents’ serves that become a first dagger, and first-set wins for a player who rarely lets anyone creep back into a match.
He does not let opponents catch their breath, smacking returns at their shins, forcing them to hit yet another shot, and then another one after they think they have won a point. It’s tennis a form of suffocation. Tommy Paul, the American who was Djokovic’s victim in the semifinal, said when it was over that much of the first set was a blur. Paul had played tennis his whole life but this time, the seconds between points, between the moment he hit a ball and then was on the run chasing after the next one, had never passed so quickly.
Andrey Rublev, a Russian with a fearsome forehand and serve, paced in the hallway in the minutes before being called onto the court. He had played Djokovic three times before, and even beat him once, but had never faced him at Rod Laver Arena, where across the net he faced an even more invincible version of Djokovic than what he had seen in the past.
“He was playing much better,” a dazed Rublev said when it was over. “I don’t know what else to say.”
In the fourth round Alex de Minaur, playing in front of a hometown crowd ready to cheer him into battle, won just five games. After demolishing de Minaur, Djokovic said to the Serbian press that playing against an Australian in Australia motivated him because of what the country’s government had done to him the previous year, detaining and deporting him because of his notoriety and his stance against mandated vaccinations.
But Djokovic’s reclamation mission in Australia was filled with hazards. Ahead of the tournament he aggravated his hamstring, forcing him to take the court wearing a thick strapping around the injured area until the final. He hobbled through the first week, playing without the magical movement that is the foundation of his game.
And then, as with so many of his previous injuries, a combination of rest, massages and painkillers made the pain and discomfort go away when it mattered most arrived. He heard the noise on social media questioning whether the leg had ever been hurt at all, and shot back that no one questions the validity of other players’ injuries — an unsubtle reference to the always banged-up Nadal — only his.
Then, just as he was hitting top speed, his father Srdjan, was caught on video taking a picture with fans outside Rod Laver Arena, some of whom were holding Russian flags, following Djokovic’s win in the quarterfinals. Serbia and Russia have close political and cultural ties. Tennis crowds outside of Serbia almost always arrive with some hostility for Djokovic and pull hard for his opponents, who are usually underdogs.
Djokovic dealt with Paul and then dealt with the public, assuring everyone that his father had never meant to show support for the war in Ukraine, that as a someone who grew up in the war-torn Balkans he knew the horrors of violent conflict and would never support it.
After that, only Tsitsipas stood in his way. A half-decade ago Tsitsipas had seemed assured of reaching the pinnacle of the sport he has dedicated himself to since he was a small boy. He’d come close to doing it two years ago in Paris, holding a two-set lead against Djokovic in the French Open final before Djokovic stormed back to beat him in five sets.
Maybe Sunday night in Australia, where the large, spirited Greek population have turned Tsitsipas into an adopted son, would be different, especially with the No. 1 ranking on the line.
Then again, maybe not. Tsitsipas came out without the ease and fluidity that he had played with for nearly two weeks, and fell behind early. Djokovic barely seemed to break a sweat as he took the first set.
In the second set though, Tsitsipas’s arm seemed to loosen, the forehands started to bang and the windmill one-hand backhands started to whip.
This will undoubtedly be the hour that keeps Tsitsipas up at night in the coming weeks. The netted volley that would have given him a chance to break Djokovic’s serve at 4-3. The tentative return of Djokovic’s meatball of a second serve when Tsitsipas had set point. The long forehand and the loose backhand — the stroke Djokovic picked on all night that gave him the edge he would not give up in the tiebreaker.
“He’s the greatest that has ever held a tennis racket,” Tsitsipas said of Djokovic as he held his runner-up plate once more.
Djokovic is the game’s best front-runner, winning roughly 95 percent of his matches when he wins the first set. He has lost a two-set lead only once, 13 years ago.
They traded service breaks in the first two games of the third set, then traded service games until yet another tiebreaker. Like the match itself, this one was not nearly as close as the final numbers. Tsitsipas sprayed his shots long and into the net, allowing Djokovic to grab a 5-0 lead.
And while Tsitsipas made it close, winning five of the next six points as Djokovic tightened his game and Tsitsipas swung his racket with nothing to lose, there was little question how this would end, only when.
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