NEW YORK—Novak Djokovic plunged a dagger into the heart of Rafael Nadal in the first set of their U.S. Open battle tonight, but the victim being Rafa, it’s hardly surprising that it took him an additional three-plus hours to expire.
When it was all over, after Djokovic finally prevailed, 6-2, 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-1, in a final that lasted four hours and 10 minutes, the 23,000-plus spectators in Arthur Ashe stadium and the worldwide television audience had experienced a match of unparalleled quality—the dazzling and borderline incredible offspring of an unlikely marriage between spectacular shotmaking and absolutely brutal physicality. No two men in recent memory have ever played so positively, for so long, with such bone-jarring and muscle-ruining abandon.
It was only fitting that the match ended on yet another atomic, inside-out forehand blast by Djokovic, for it was his persistent willingness to take risks—to paint lines, to challenge Nadal’s biggest weapons, and to keep forcing his opponent back off the baseline—that won him the match. I only wish this description could pay adequate tribute to Nadal as well, because it takes a very special kind of player to marshal the kind of determination and faith he showed after being more or less pushed around for two sets—virtues that won him the third set and looked for a time like they might actually reverse the result.
In that third set, Nadal simply would not be denied and even the most devout Djokovic fan had to be worried for his hero, despite his sizable lead. For as brilliantly as Djokovic had played over the first two sets, he seemed to be tiring in the third. It was the only point in the match where either man made errors that might be called “careless”—even if the sum total of them was perhaps half-a-dozen. On a day like today, six misses were as potentially disastrous as 600. And when Djokovic required treatment for his back at the start of the fourth set, it seemed that Nadal might have weathered the storm—that he had a real chance to outlast Djokovic.
But you don’t win 63 matches (now 64) while losing just two without a little magic, without appearing like the fates are looking out for you. Thus, when Djokovic held the first game of the fourth set and promptly broke Nadal in the next one, the tide was reversed for the last time.
It’s silly to even try to track turning points and games of significance in a match in which Djokovic had 26 break points (which he converted into 11 breaks—the most Nadal has suffered one match in his entire Grand Slam career), and Nadal had 14 (of which he converted six). That the match was so close despite the high number of break chances Djokovic held speaks to Nadal’s remarkable capacity to withstand pressure.
It’s also futile to take a macro-view of a match in which the two men combined to produce 88 unforced errors (Djokovic, the winner, accounted for 51 of them). Those stats tell you nothing whatsoever about the contest, for most of those errors occurred after either man had seemingly won the point two or three times, and were mistakes born of courage and vision rather than fear or calculation. Most players would die to make errors of the quality these men coughed up today.
In the end, though, the qualities that seemed to most help Djokovic win his third Grand Slam of the year were:
1. His ability to hit the ball deeper, flatter and at more severe angles than Nadal did on a regular basis. Against every other player on the tour, Nadal can get away with playing relatively short shots, well within the lines. But Djokovic punishes him for that, mercilessly. He simply pushes Nadal back off the baseline and dictates with his groundstrokes.
2. His backhand, especially when returning serve. The ad-court slice or kicker is the left-handed player’s bread-and-butter. Some players have built entire careers on it (Goran Ivanisevic, anyone?). But Djokovic’s return is so reliable, and so penetrating, that time and again he rocked Nadal with rocket returns off ad-court serves.
3. Confidence. When Nadal reviews this match, he’ll probably ask himself how he let Djokovic back into each of the first two sets after taking a two-love lead in each. He’ll also have to figure out why he faded so noticeably in the fourth. He’ll only find part of that answer by looking within, because a good portion of the strong finish has to be attributed to Djokovic’s current state of confidence.
So the beat goes on. Djokovic remains on track to record one of the most spectacular of seasons in tennis history. No matter how that goes, tonight he won one of the greatest tennis matches ever played.
—Peter Bodo