Novak Djokovic long ago proved himself to be one of tennis’ greatest back-to-the-wall players. Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga: They’ve all reached match point on Djokovic, only to see him wipe their chances away with one seemingly casual slap of his racquet.

It has been a while since we’ve seen Djokovic pull off his late-match tightrope walk. Mostly that’s because he doesn’t let his opponents get close enough for him to need it. On Thursday, though, Djokovic had his back to the wall in another way. He had lost the first set to Grigor Dimitrov in the third round at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris; a defeat could have opened the door for Andy Murray to take over the No. 1 ranking, a spot that Djokovic has held since July 2014 (122 straight weeks).

Last month the overstressed Serb claimed that he didn’t want to worry about winning majors or being No. 1, that he wanted to play for enjoyment and take his results as they came. Rather than arriving in Paris with his coach, Boris Becker, Djokovic showed up with Pepe Imaz, a former player from Spain who, in the words of The Guardian, “specializes in meditation and extremely long hugs” (and who also happens to be in business with Djokovic’s younger brother, Marko). The match against Dimitrov was the first test of Novak’s new resolve.

Whatever he’s doing off the court, it was obvious after his eventual 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 win that Djokovic still knows how to walk a tightrope on it, and that he can still get the competitive juices flowing when he needs them. And “competitive” was the operative word on Thursday.

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This wasn’t a stellar, firing-on-all-cylinders Djokovic. He struggled with his serve at times, made 29 errors and hit just 17 winners. He also benefited from Dimitrov’s 55 mistakes and seven double faults. Dimitrov was especially generous early in each of the last two sets, allowing Djokovic to jump ahead and eventually run away with them. But while Djokovic had help, the most important thing is that he competed well.

At times over the last five months, he has looked as if he would rather be anywhere other than on a tennis court, and he has been quick to get negative when things haven’t gone well. In his loss to Roberto Bautista Agut in Shanghai, Djokovic made highlight reels around the world with his shirt-tearing, racquet-smashing meltdown.

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Novak Djokovic shows that his competitive juices are still flowing

Novak Djokovic shows that his competitive juices are still flowing

There was none of that against Dimitrov. This time, Djokovic—aware of the stakes—kept his head and found a way to use the shots that were working for him as often as he could. On Thursday that was his patented, and underappreciated, crosscourt forehand. Djokovic, maybe more than anyone else, can hit that shot conservatively, but at the same time aggressively. It’s the weight he gets with his topspin that does the trick, and on Thursday it helped him elicit errors from Dimitrov when he needed them.

Djokovic said before this tournament that the challenge from Murray for No. 1 has “rejuvenated” him. You couldn’t see that rejuvenation in the statistics from Thursday’s match, or in his form for much of it. And whatever the headlines say, Imaz hasn’t cast a spell over him or made him more at peace with the struggles of his sport.

Instead, Djokovic’s no-frills, make-the-best-of-what-you-have performance on Thursday showed that he’s not at peace with losing. Willfulness and competitiveness: Those are the things that got Djokovic to No. 1 in the first place, and those are the things that will keep him there.