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.