The Nine-Year Wait

Watching Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal at the French Open on Wednesday made me think of a scene from the 1970s tennis novel World Class. In it, a top young player has had a rare bad day and suffered an upset in his biggest match of the season. When it’s over, he vows to improve his game to the point where even if he happens to be playing poorly, even if luck is against him, even if his opponent is in the zone, he’s simply too good to lose. It's every tennis player's impossible dream.

As he walked into Court Philippe Chatrier today, Djokovic had nearly made that dream come true in 2015. He was 39-2 on the season, and had won 27 straight matches. But he hadn’t weathered the ultimate test in tennis, and possibly the ultimate test in sports: Facing Nadal at Roland Garros. It has been a dream-crushing matchup for every player but one, and for the last four years it had been the one on-court task that had bedeviled Djokovic. He would begin each season by stating that a French Open title was his primary goal. He would arrive in Paris as the world’s best player, looking ready to finally complete a career Grand Slam. But something would always come along to trip Nole up against Rafa.

In 2011, he lost one round early, to Roger Federer. In 2012, in the final against Nadal, a rain-delay cut short his brilliant late rally. In 2013, he ran into the net on a crucial point in the fifth set. In 2014, he wasted energy by letting himself become needlessly frustrated. Twice he handed Nadal the title by throwing in a stunning double fault at match point. As easily as Djokovic soared above the rest of the field everywhere else, he could still be brought down to earth and dragged through the red mud by Nadal inside Chatrier.

But not this time. Rather than letting the match become a physical contest, Djokovic took crisp control of the rallies from the opening game. He won eight of the first nine points and broke Nadal with a series of hooking crosscourt forehands that pushed him wide, and well-measured drop shots that caught him off guard. Through the first four games, Djokovic played exactly the same brand of clean, controlled, smoothly dominant tennis that he has been playing all year. Is there a word that means “beyond clinical”? That’s how Novak looked in the early going.

Then came the test. At 0-4, Nadal, a man who, as Darren Cahill says, never plays the score, began to pump himself up and get himself back into the set. His topspin forehand briefly took hold, and he started to anticipate Djokovic’s drop shots. When he clocked two aces—one at 126 m.p.h—to hold for 4-4, Djokovic must have wondered, for a millisecond, whether disaster was about to strike yet again.

But he also might have had another thought: I’ve been here before this year. While Djokovic’s 2015 won-loss record is stellar, his wins have not always come easily. A fast start, a mid-match lull that lets the opponent catch up, and a successful sprint to the finish line: That has been Djokovic's circuitous way of late, and that was his way again on Wednesday.

At 4-4, just when he might have been expected to be reeling with frustration, Djokovic held at love. Three games later, at 6-5, he might have reeled again when Nadal saved a fourth set point with an overhead that caught the tape and skidded over for a winner. It was enough to make Djokovic lean back and roll his eyes up to his player’s box. But instead of letting Rafa catch up, he broke with a forehand pass. The 67-minute first set, one of the best these two have played anywhere, was his.

Yet even then, something about playing Nadal on Chatrier seemed to dredge up bad old memories for Djokovic. Rather than keep his head down and plow forward after that first-set success, he sat down and began to complain that the court wasn’t being watered between sets. “It’s the same thing every year,” Djokovic griped to chair umpire Cedric Mourier. On the next changeover, he continued his harangue, asking Mourier if someone was going to have to slip and injure himself on the dry clay before it was wetted down. Was this the best way to react to a winning first set? Was he going to let the moment get to him one more time?

Again, the answer was no; Djokovic was too good even for his own nerves. What could have been a downturn ended up being a useful venting session. While still angry about the court, he continued to hold easily and finally broke Nadal by going into his strength, his forehand. The shot that had won Rafa nine French titles wasn’t there for him this time. His last chance came at 3-5. Down two set points, Nadal fought back to deuce. Djokovic, briefly unnerved, decided to come barreling in behind a mediocre second serve. Somehow he managed to flip an acutely angled half volley over the net for a winner.

Panic or genius? It’s all in the execution, and nobody is executing like Djokovic these days. The second set, and soon the match, were his.

“My tactic was to play aggressively and to stay focused on all points,” Djokovic said after the 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 victory.

That may sound obvious, but with his level where it has been of late, it was really all he needed to do in this match.

“He was better than me,” Nadal said. “That’s it. It’s very simple.”

The stats made it look as simple as Rafa said. Djokovic won 102 points to Nadal’s 71, hit 45 winners to Nadal’s 16 (23 to three from the forehand side), and earned 18 break points to Nadal’s five. This time it was Djokovic who wore down Nadal; the Spaniard said his one regret was that he didn’t fight as hard as he could have in the third set. This time it was Nadal who ended the match with a double fault.

Afterward, Toni Nadal said that his nephew’s forehand had not been good enough. It was a problem all spring, and for the first time he was unable to iron it out at Roland Garros—Nadal had two fewer rounds to build his confidence this time. By the end, the Parisian fans, long lukewarm at best to Nadal, had begun to cheer for him, and they sounded a little stunned to see the five-time defending champion walk off a loser. Consider it one more testament to what Nadal has done at Roland Garros. Watching him in defeat there was, more than anything else, surreal. I can remember Rafa saying, after his third French Open title, that he doubted he would ever reach Bjorn Borg’s men’s record of six. He can’t feel too bad, for too long, about having nine.

As for Nole, he still has work to do to reach his goal of one. His next opponent, Andy Murray, is playing exceptionally well, as are both of his possible final-round foes, Stan Wawrinka and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Still, a pause for celebration would seem to be in order. Nine years ago, Djokovic declared Nadal “beatable” in Paris. Some thought he was a too-bold teenager at the time; now he’s backed up his words, and his early self-belief has been rewarded.

In the third set, as he was sprinting down the homestretch, finally free of Rafa’s clutches, Djokovic added insult to injury by hitting two game-winning net-cord winners. A few fans booed—maybe they’ve begun to believe that he’s good enough to plan those shots now. Djokovic isn’t that good, but he has finally made himself too good for Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros, and it doesn't get any better than that.