He has little of the dreamy grace of Roger Federer. Next to the abundantly muscular Rafa Nadal, he appears sort of spindly. But Novak Djokovic is far more than a spear-carrier.
In this cozy era of The Federer-Nadal Duopoly, Djokovic has yet to create a truly distinctive signature. His skills are subtle. Still, time and again, the lanky Serb has been right there, deep in the conversation at Slams, reaching the quarters or better in 14 of the last 16 majors. With his hedgehog buzz cut, yo-yo elasticity and linebacker glare, he’s proven to be much more than the greatest mime in sports history. He’s scored plenty of great wins in his nine years on tour and has long been the oversized hope for his undersized — at times besieged — homeland.
Yet no matter his resume, Djokovic’s road to extraordinary success had some early coming-of-age speed bumps.
For starters, there’s the little issue of the quality of his opposition. “Unfortunately,” Djokovic sighs, “I was born in the wrong era.” Plus, Djokovic seems saddled with the most curious habit in men’s tennis (this side of Nadal’s wedgie thing). The Serb’s pre-service ritual — bouncing the ball up to 36 times — has prompted crowds to count along sarcastically and elicited warnings from umps. Zingmeister Andy Roddick suggested that he “could make eight phone calls and order a pizza before Novak’s ready.” Former Wimbledon champ Pat Cash claimed that Djokovic’s bounce-a-thon “shows contempt for the guy waiting to receive…and bores the pants off fans.” Cash called for a buzzer to signal a time violation.
Beyond this there’s Djokovic’s worst-in-the-game penchant for asking for medical time-outs and for pulling out midway through big matches. Djokovic confided, “I don’t like how I have got a reputation as a guy who asked for medical time-outs to intimidate opponents. It’s not me trying to provoke my opponent, it’s me trying to win.”
His problematic history of “no-mas” moments have hung over him like a rain cloud: ’05 French Open (breathing problems); ’06 Umag final (more respiratory issues); Wimbledon ’07 (toe blister); ’09 Aussie Open (heat-induced cramps and soreness); and Belgrade last year (allergies). When, amazingly, he pulled out of the Wimbledon semis with a sore pinky toe, the usually sedate Tracy Austin was dumbstruck, saying, “If you’re breathing, you go for it, babe.”
More famously, before their ’08 U.S. Open match, Roddick said, “I’ve got to feel good, he’s got 16 injuries …back and hip…bird flu, anthrax, SARS and the common cold.” Then, after Djokovic beat Andy, the Serb offered an on-court explanation that did more harm than his imitations had done good: “Andy was saying I have 16 injuries…Obviously I don’t.” That drew a round of boos that Djokovic acknowledged by saying: “Yeah, right… [the crowd is] already against me because they think I’m faking everything. That’s not nice… to say I have 16 injuries and I’m faking it.”
Not surprisingly, off the court, the outspoken Djokovic had to navigate some turbulence. While he’s pals with his fellow 23-year-old Andy Murray, the same cannot be said of Roddick. And although he shares a publicist with Rafa, and they’re now buddies, his imitations years ago of the Spaniard’s fidgety routines didn’t exactly endear him to the Nadal camp.
And Djokovic and Federer have a spicy history too. Before a big Aussie Open match, Novak, then 19, said that he had just three words for Federer: “He’s going down.” A couple of years later, when Djokovic scored a huge win over the Swiss monarch, the Serb’s mom claimed, “The king is dead. Long live the king.” Like many others in ’08 and since, Djokovic said the struggling Federer was “a little bit shaken…[and] suddenly worried.”
For his part Federer (who, by the way, won four Slams after Djokovic’s assessment) hasn’t been shy about taking on Team Djokovic. He criticized Novak’s pullouts and, after a dicey call in Monte Carlo, told Djokovic’s family to “BE QUIET!” And he displayed some of his Federerian ‘tude to explain one key win, saying Novak “had his chances today — many of them. You could sing a song about it.”
Of course, now millions by the Danube delight in singing Djokovic’s praises: after all, the Serbian surge is one of the great stories of international sport.
Dusan Orlandic, a top Serbian tennis official, explained, “It’s like we had a garage for a Yugo, which was the world’s worst car, and then one day we get up and find parked in there a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, and a Formula One car.” Davis Cup hero Janko Tipsarevic gives the story more grit, insisting, “People have to understand that all that we have in tennis here came from mud, from nothing. No one invested one dollar or one Euro into any one of our players.”
Djokovic claims, “When my mother was giving me the milk, I was watching Boris [Becker] at Wimbledon.” At seven kid Novak began to play near his parents’ pizzeria in a ski village. In ’99 when he was ten, he courageously practiced throughout those 78 horrific days as NATO bombs blasted his land. “Very bad memories,” he told Vogue. “It’s something which I don’t really like to talk about.” Novak’s mother, Dijana, said, “Tennis saved us. If we didn’t have tennis, we would have spent the days scared, always looking to the sky, wondering when the bombs would come.”
In Serbia — a country that no longer rules the lands it once had, no longer enjoys the standard of living it once relished and which lost four wars in the’ 90s — they celebrate a spunky athlete. And for good reason. Djokovic was once ranked No. 2. In November he led Serbia to its greatest athletic achievement, its first Davis Cup championship, and he has now won two Slams.
It’s hard to underestimate Djokovic’s place in Serbia’s salvation narrative or the almost devotional fervor of ‘Novakmania.’ “He has done more for this country than any politician,” a taxi driver told William Finnegan. No wonder Djoker trinkets sell like hot cakes. On the streets he’s besieged. Throngs pack arenas for matches and fundraisers. Fifteen thousand come to Belgrade’s Nikola Pasic Square to celebrate tennis heroes.
Politicians curry favor with the baseliner. Why not? Who wouldn’t want to be around a champion with a hint of Michael Jordan, a dash of Saturday Night Live and a splash of George Washington?
Djokovic insists he’s not into politics. You could have fooled us. Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic told ESPN that Djokovic has “all the elements of a leader. He has charisma, strength, skill, exceptional intelligence. He epitomizes everything we’d like our nation to be.”
Djokovic famously had a kumbaya moment with the reflective Croatian Ivan Ljubicic when the stars of the two fiercely combative rival nations exchanged shirts after a Monte Carlo match. When there was a recent surge for Kosovo to gain independence from Serbia, Djokovic — with little hesitation — spoke out. Reflecting on the region’s culture and history, he insisted Kosovo was, now and forever, a part of his land.
Unfortunately, what has also been a part of Novak’s considerable career has been the troubling reality of coming up short in many a big match. In fact, it got so bad that before one Nadal-Djokovic clay-court encounter, Justin Gimelstob dangerously promised that if Novak won he would “stand on his head naked.” Even Novak, at times, seemed confounded. Following yet another loss to Rafa in Madrid in ’09, he confided, “This happens too often…I can play this well and still not win…I played one of my best matches…[and] you could see what happened.”
Over the past three seasons, Djokovic certainly could claim the Oscar as tennis’ best supporting actor. But whether it was due to a lack of physical prowess, mental tenacity or on-court firepower, for three years the Serb remained a one-Slam wonder. Still, he never wavered in the goal he’s had since he was seven — becoming No. 1. And his U.S. Open semis win over Federer last September, when he survived two match points, was a great leap forward. Even more notable was his triumph in the Davis Cup final in Belgrade over France.
Winning the Davis Cup changes everything. Spaniard Fernando Verdasco noted: “All those feelings, all that emotion that he lived there made Djokovic a much better player, and that helped him big-time to go to Australia and win the title.” Not only that, despite a too brief off-season, he made key changes and upgraded his package of skills. He streamlined his somewhat dysfunctional support team and now has just one coach, Marian Vajda. Recently embarrassed by being the only man in the top 50 with more double faults than aces, he has improved his serve so it is now a tidy, well-placed missile. And the man who has often been hobbled by an array of ailments heartily enjoyed Melbourne’s unseasonably cool temps as he swept through the draw while dropping but a single set.
In the semis against The Mighty Fed, he again displayed his uncanny knack of scampering along the baseline. Like Nadal, he not only shrunk the court, he turned shots, which for other players would have been defensive stabs, into offensive daggers. On display was the human slinky, the “slide and fire” man with more splits than the Mississippi Delta. Djokovic, said Bud Collins, was “a Mercury clone with wings on his swift sneakers.” All the while, Federer, struggling with his serve and looking cautious, seemed to ask, “What’s hit me?” as he was schooled by the Serb’s punishing backhand and unkind forehand 7-6(3), 7-5, 6-4.
Similarly, in the final, Murray, who hoped to break The Curse of Fred Perry to bring Britain its first male Slam title in 75 years, offered a dreary (at least there were no tears this time) effort.
While British fans craved a ferocious warrior, Steve Brenner suggested Murray looked like “the dampest of squibs.” The semi-coach-less Scotsmen (for all his rope-a-dope, off-pace dinks, wicked drop shots and finely angled drives) primarily gave us painful grimaces, self-critical groans and defeatist body language. Where’s the Churchillian pluck? And after Djokovic prevailed in a critical 39-stroke point that enabled him to score a critical break late in the first set, the Serb never looked back as he marched (without calling for a single medical time-out or offering one hilarious imitation) to an impressive 6-4, 6-2, 6-3 win to secure his second Aussie crown.
While still ranked No. 3, conventional wisdom tells us that over the past six months, he’s been the best in the men’s game. Djokovic explained, “I feel I’m a better player now than I was three years ago, because I think that physically I’m stronger, I’m faster. Mentally, I’m more motivated on the court. I know how to react in certain moments, and I know how to play on a big stage.” Plus, pop-psychologists noted, the fun-loving free spirit was now dancing with the stars, pretending to be a photographer and once again embracing life with gusto.
Still, in the end, for all of the bounty of Djokovic’s Melbourne harvest, the Aussie Open left us with far more questions than answers:
•Will Caroline Wozniacki, 20, for all her speed and defensive skills, ever be a dominant performer?
•When will Serena (“remember her”) Williams return and when she does will she again dominate? And will Venus, (whose career of late has been more about dismal injuries and daring outfits) again be a force?
•Will American women’s tennis, which suffered seven humbling, back-to-back losses early in the Aussie Open, again climb back to respectability?
•Yes, Kim (such a sweet ‘n mean mama) Clijsters has now won back-to-back Slams. But, will this be her last year?
•Has there ever been a more perplexing fall from rankings bliss then the demise of former No. 1 Dinara Safina (now ranked No. 117) who suffered a punishing 6-0, 6-0 opening round loss to Clijsters?
•Is operatic Francesca Schiavone the best entertainer in tennis?
•How can women’s tennis possibly replace the on-court artistry and off-court angst of the again-retired Justine Henin?
•Will Rafa’s body and ferocious playing style sabotage his career?
•Now that the sky has again fallen and Federer failed to win a Slam, (and, yikes, actually hasn’t won one for over a year) should we once again sprint to the highest peak to lament that our Alpine hero will never again rise from that dreary valley of imperfection to dominate with breathless ease? Or is it best to just breathe the less than exciting air of reason? After all, the man who is not only continually battling a cadre of increasingly talented wannabes, now faces many a challenge: he’s a 29-year-old father of two with a beautiful but slightly vulnerable backhand that imposes only on occasion. He has just slightly diminished foot-speed. His serve and returns may be a tad off, his confidence has been bruised and the glow of his aura is not so bright.
However, what is undeniably bright is Djokovic’s future. But just how bright? Coming out of Australia, tennis now wonders whether he can finally be No. 1. Can the man who has played so many roles – from court jester to national hero — now play a new one? Does tennis’ dogged deputy, who excels on all surfaces, have the firepower, health, wheels and will to dislodge tennis’ two big guns and become the new sheriff in town?
