Father Plays Best

With the benefit of hindsight, it should seem obvious now that Novak Djokovic would win his third Paris Masters title over the weekend. That’s not because the signs looked good for him at the start of the event. If anything, they pointed in the opposite direction.

Coming to Bercy, Djokovic had won just one tournament since Wimbledon, and had nearly ceded the No. 1 ranking, which he had held since July, to Roger Federer. Djokovic had also spent the previous week witnessing the birth of his first child, Stefan. After his last personal milestone, his wedding this summer, Nole had been a lost soul for the next month on court. Would we see a similar swoon from him to end the year? As Bercy began, Djokovic himself almost sounded prepared for one. He claimed that, no matter what happened on court, having his son made him feel like he had already finished at the top.

Naturally, after all of that, Djokovic won Paris without dropping a set. He won his 600th match and 20th Masters title, and he re-extended his lead over Federer in the race for No. 1. Along the way, he cooled off the hottest player in tennis, Andy Murray, survived the home-court showman, Gael Monfils, on his favorite stage, and knocked the best of the next generation, Kei Nishikori and Milos Raonic, back a step in the semis and final.

“I see it better now than one week ago, that’s for sure,” Djokovic said of his quest for No. 1. “It helps that I won the title in Bercy, that I’m playing well, and that I’m feeling good about myself on the court playing indoors. That encourages me.”

So all is once again well in the world of Nole, for this week at least. It has been that kind of up-and-down season for him. Every time he has looked ready to roll over the competition and take control of the tour again, he has stumbled. Every time he has looked down and out, he’s bounced right back onto his feet again.

“I played the best match of the entire week today when it was most needed,” Djokovic said of his 6-2, 6-3 win over Raonic in the final. “I got a lot of returns back and just overall I'm extremely happy with the performance.”

Djokovic made step-by-step progress to that performance. He began the week in a testy, hands-in-the-air mood against Philipp Kohlschreiber. The shakiness continued in the second set against Monfils and the first set against Murray. If this had been summer, Djokovic might not have found a way to win either of those matches. As it was, against Monfils he fought tooth and nail to get it done in straights, and against Murray he relaxed after being broken early in the second and cruised. In both cases, Djokovic remembered who he was, and that his strength is his ability to endure his opponent’s hot streaks and remain steady while they falter. In the past, Djokovic has expressed confidence that he can outlast Monfils mentally and Murray physically, and he called on both of those beliefs in Paris.

By the time he met Raonic in the final, Djokovic was at his subtly solid best. He moved the big man out to his forehand side relentlessly, yet did so without taking risks—by the middle of the second set, Djokovic had made just six errors to Raonic’s 27. Djokovic returned the Missile’s missiles exceptionally well, and he used his own body serve to tie Raonic up on returns. He did something similar from the baseline with the depth of his ground strokes, and the thoroughness of his defense. It took Raonic 10 points to win one from the back of the court.

“Every time he put his racquet on the ball, he was making me play a deep ball,” Raonic said. “If he gave me a short return and I would attack, he would be there. That weighs on your shoulder when the guy is playing as well as he did today.”

Raonic, it must be said, didn’t do anything to help his own cause or make Djokovic feel any pressure; in each set, he donated the lead to the Serb. Raonic duffed a backhand volley into the net and was broken in his opening service game, and he double faulted to hand another break to Djokovic in the first game of the second set. There has been a lot of talk about how much better Raonic is from the ground than he once was, but it was hard to notice when he was forced onto the defensive in this match. While his serve makes his continued success inevitable, Raonic still struggles when he scrambles.

As with so many youthful breakthroughs on the men’s side in recent years, Raonic’s run to his second Masters final had a two-steps-up, one-step-back quality. He recorded his first win in seven tries against Federer in the quarters, but was overmatched by Djokovic in the final. Raonic has had the best year of his career, and, along with Nishikori, he’ll represent the new generation—i.e., the tour’s 23-and 24-year-olds—in the World Tour Finals for the first time next week. But like Nishikori, he’ll go in having been beaten soundly by a member of the Big 4. In a year of supposed decline for the ATP's ruling class, Nole, Roger, and Rafa still ended up winning seven of tour's eight mandatory Masters events.

Djokovic accounted for four of those titles, on a variety of surfaces—Indian Wells and Miami on outdoor hard, Rome on clay, and Paris on indoor hard. It has been, as I said, a year of hairpin reversals for him. After losing in the quarters in Australia, Djokovic won two straight U.S. Masters. After playing one of the best matches of his career to beat Nadal in Rome, he played one of his most disappointing to lose to him at Roland Garros. After beating Federer in a classic Wimbledon final and retaking the No. 1 ranking, he was a shadow of himself during the summer hard-court season. Now, after looking ready to hand over the year-end No. 1 ranking a week ago, he has one arm around it again.

In this sense, 2014 has been the most human of Djokovic’s No. 1 seasons. But, despite his reputation for playing "clinical" tennis and being a baseline "machine," he has always been the most human of No. 1s. In spite of his accomplishments, he appears at times to lose all confidence in himself; it even happened for a brief period on his backhand side in the Paris final. Djokovic pleads with his players’ box, he shows the world his frustration and vulnerability, and, as he says, he cant help “making life complicated” for himself in matches that should be simple. He often plays his best by convincing himself that a match is already lost. He is, in short, not unlike a lot of us.

Djokovic will probably finish No. 1 for the third time in four years. If it happens, that feat will further secure his place among the game’s all-time greats, but it won’t make him seem superhuman. It will just make him the best human at tennis.