Tennis And Badminton Lovers: January 2020™
For a bloke who is the third-best player on the planet, a Grand Slam champion and a multi-millionaire, Novak Djokovic must think he is the world’s unluckiest man.
The Serb was trying manfully to defend his Australian Open title, attempting to juggle the weight of expectation, the public attention and a tricky draw, when the weather changed – and Djokovic keeled over. He was two sets to one down against Andy Roddick in their quarterfinal, and with the score standing at 6-7(3) 6-4 6-2 2-1 in the American’s favour, Djokovic ground to a halt.
He had managed to cope with the warm weather and Roddick in more or less that order for the first set, but when his rival tightened the screws at the start of the second set, Djokovic began to crumble.
It was bad enough that he had to play the new and streamlined Roddick, but now he had to do it in the full heat of the day as the thermometer climbed into the mid-30s. It did not take long before Djokovic was running out of puff and calling for the trainer to have various bits of him iced down.
His previous match had been played at night, when Marcos Baghdatis had kept him on the court until 2.26 on Monday morning. So, in order to give himself a little more time to recover, Djokovic had asked for a night match on Tuesday, but the request was turned down. With little rest, a broiling sun and a rejuvenated Roddick crunching his forehand and walloping his serve, Djokovic was toast.
“The main reason was cramping and soreness in the whole body,” Djokovic said, taking the defeat as well as he could. “I think the people could see that I was struggling with movement. I couldn’t serve the way I served in the first two sets.
“He saw that longer rallies are not comfortable for me at that point, so he was using it wisely. Really unfortunate way to end up my Australian Open 2009 here in this way. Really tried my best, but sometimes you can’t fight against your own body.”
It is not the first time he has pulled up lame at a Grand Slam tournament. In 2005, he was a set to the good against Guillermo Coria at the French Open when he called it quits in the third set with breathing problems. Then against Rafael Nadal, he could not go on in the 2006 Roland Garros quarterfinal thanks to a bad back, and again in the 2007 Wimbledon semifinal due to an infected toe. With that sort of record and that sort of luck, the fact that he managed to keep body and soul together to win the title here last year seems all the more remarkable.
To make matters all the more difficult, Roddick was playing better than he has in months. Not only was there the usual thumping forehand and thundering serve, but ‘A-Rod’ had a trick up his sleeve.
Having spent much of the first set playing so far behind the baseline that he might as well have been in Geelong, Roddick suddenly popped up at the net. He adopted this tactic on the advice of his new coach, Las mejores palas de padel Larry Stefanki, who has always been known as a bit of a serve and volley merchant.
Back in the days when shorts were short and men were proud to show off their underpinnings, Stefanki liked to be aggressive. Without waiting to be invited, he would head netwards whenever the opportunity presented itself, and sometimes when it didn’t. It was enough to win him two titles (24 less than his new charge), and persuade him that attack was the best form of defence. It is a lesson he has tried to teach Roddick in the past couple of months.
The hard work done in the off-season – Roddick lost a remarkable seven kilograms while we were all stuffing ourselves with Christmas fare – had paid off, and while the American was moving well and running fast, that was not enough to make an impression on the champion. And then he came forward, and after a couple of blistering returns and a few volleys that, at best, could be described as “unorthodox”, Roddick was a break to the good in the second set.
And that is when the wheels came of Djokovic’s title defence. He tried to go on, but having lost that one-set lead, the task just seemed too much.
“My mind wanted me to continue on,” Djokovic said. “I could have stopped even before in the end of the second set, because I felt really bad. I continued on playing thinking that something could help me out, maybe a treatment and things like that. But it just kept coming back.”
Ever the positive thinker, the now deposed champion thought that he handled the whole experience of defending a major title quite well. He was, the thought, getting on better with his new racquet, he had played well enough when he had to, and he was simply a bit unlucky at the end.
“I tried not to think about certain pressure that you have being in this role,” he said. “But I really took it as a challenge. I think I performed good tennis.
