What do you do when you keep getting beaten by the same bloke? You go looking for countermeasures, right? Well, apparently not if your name is Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. Before Christmas, the two grandees of men’s tennis both stressed that they would not be using the off-season to search for methods of disconcerting Novak Djokovic.
Are they in denial? Or is it just professional pride that prevents them from changing their practice routines? What seems particularly optimistic is the idea — stated again by Nadal after Djokovic smoked him in Doha a week ago — that the younger man’s level will drop at some unstated point in the future. You have to wonder whether they have been paying attention, for they are dealing with someone who has reached the final of 16 straight tournaments over the past year.
Perhaps the Big Two have had it so good for so long that they find it difficult to accept the new reality. For this is the age of Novak. As the ESPN commentator Brad Gilbert put it last week, “He is as complete a tennis player as I’ve ever seen. Just the way he’s playing right now, I think he’s going to have an incredibly monster year.”
It feels as if the arithmetic of the game has simplified itself. Until relatively recently, Djokovic’s inner fires had been prone to boil over in the biggest matches. How else do we explain that bizarre two-year sequence — stretching between the French Opens of 2012 and 2014 — when he lost five out of six Slam finals?
Unfortunately for the rest of the field, Djokovic now seems to have exorcised those demons. Since the Wimbledon Championships of 2014 — the point when he reached some kid of mutual understanding with his coach Boris Becker — he has shown fewer and fewer signs of weakness. Just ask the bookmakers, who make him the odds-on favourite to win the Australian Open. They appreciate the simple fact that you don’t win major events without beating Djokovic along the way.
And yet, we must return to the answers given by Federer and Nadal in November, when asked whether they would dedicate their off-season to cracking this Mission Impossible. “Not really,” said Federer. “I know I’ll have chances with my game.” As for Nadal, he replied that “I never practice thinking about others. What Novak is doing is just amazing … but it’s not easy to stay at that high level.”
Why are they so stubborn? One reason may lie in their enduring popularity. Few fans of either man have defected to Djokovic, whose struggles for international resonance have elements in common with Ivan Lendl (another super-consistent eastern European with an image problem). No matter what happens on court, the duo have continued to soak up the biggest endorsement deals, viewing figures and crowd reactions, all of which must ease the pain of dropping down the rankings.
They may also feel that the numbers are on their side. With 10 Grand Slams now to his name, Djokovic remains at least a year’s worth of majors behind Nadal (14) and two years behind Federer (17). If they are right, and a dip in form is inevitable at some point, he may never catch them at all.
Mats Wilander — the Swedish champion who will be commentating on the Australian Open for Eurosport — also subscribes to the view that Djokovic as mortal. To his mind, the World No 1 has the potential to fade as quickly as Lleyton Hewitt, another bloody-minded baseliner in the mid-2000s.