What does Dino Prizmic’s possible star-making turn against Novak Djokovic say about both men?

Novak, Rafa, Iga, Coco…Dino?

Tennis has a handful of players who we know by their first names alone. After the opening day of the 2024 Australian Open, the consensus among the sport’s cognoscenti seems to be that Dino Prizmic, an 18-year-old newcomer from Croatia, is destined to join them.

His first name is certainly hard to forget. But that’s not the only thing this thick-legged, backwards-hatted, hard-headed teenager has going for him, it seems. Over four hours and one minute on Sunday night, Prizmic stole one of the biggest stages in tennis away from its biggest star, Novak Djokovic. He didn’t end up stealing the match from the top seed, too, but he pushed him through four hard-fought sets (6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4). He also brought a packed Rod Laver Arena to its feet more than once, and kept the outcome in doubt until the last ball.

“We’re witnessing a new superstar of the sport, I really believe that,” former Slam champ and BBC radio commentator Pat Cash enthused as Prizmic outplayed Djokovic in the second-set tiebreaker and went up a break in the third.

“Prizmic got GAME,” another Aussie commentator, Nick Kyrgios, echoed on Twitter.

But don’t take it from two guys on the sidelines; take it from the man across the net. Djokovic spent most of his on-court interview with Jim Courier, and a good chunk of his press conference, composing an Ode to Dino.

“I had an amazing opponent tonight,” Djokovic said. “For an 18-year-old, he played so maturely and confidently on the court, fighting through, not giving up even when he was four down in the fourth set. Impressed with his mentality, with his approach, with his game.”

“It felt like playing myself in a mirror,” Djokovic said. “We’re going to see a lot of him in the future.”

More specifically, Djokovic said he loved Prizmic’s “game plan” and the way he “was using the whole court.”

You can see why he would like the Prizmic plan, because it was straight out of the Djokovic playbook.

The Croatian methodically moved the Serb left with his crosscourt backhand, then sent him scrambling back across the baseline with his crosscourt forehand. Prizmic made the court wider and controlled the rallies without having to swing all out or flirt with the sidelines. There’s a compact, unhurried smoothness to his ground strokes—especially his backhand—that helps him absorb and redirect pace. It’s not surprising that Prizmic’s career highlight before last night was his Roland Garros junior title on clay last summer.

But Prizmic’s most useful attribute was his attitude. After a nervy first set, he never looked overwhelmed by the moment, never looked like he was just trying to make the score respectable, never seemed cowed or overly deferential to Djokovic. He played at his own pace, and wasn’t afraid to fist-pump and fire up the crowd as if he was every bit the equal of the man on the other side of the net.

“He came out there not with a desire just to play a nice set or enjoy the experience, but rather to win,” Djokovic said. “Kudos to him. It was impressive.”

“For me, every player is good, but Djokovic has his mental strength,” Prizmic told the ATPTour.com after qualifying for the main draw and learning who he would face in the first round. “I’ll act like it’s a normal match, not very stressed. I just want to play my best tennis, and I don’t have anything to lose, and that’s it.”

Prizmic was able to do that—right up until the moment he had something to lose. He reached his peak at 3-2 in the third set, when he broke Djokovic in an epic 10-minute game. Until then, Djokovic had played erratically and showed his frustration after virtually every miss. But going down a break in the third was a wake-up call. He dropped the hammer and won the next eight games to take a 4-0 lead in the fourth. To his credit, Prizmic didn’t cave; he clawed his way back to 5-4, and forced Djokovic to survive a long final game to close out the match.

Djokovic said he has been “under the weather for four or five days,” and he was nursing a wrist injury earlier this month at United Cup. He mistimed his forehand for stretches of this match, and he helped keep Prizmic in it with a loose service game in the second set. But he also raised his level when needed.

Was this a good test, or a bad sign, for Djokovic as he tries to become the first player to win 25 Grand Slam singles titles? You have to err on the side of saying it was a good test; he’s the champion Down Under until proven otherwise. But the match also reminded me of his four-set win over another thick-legged 18-year-old, Holger Rune, in the first round of the 2021 US Open. It was the start of a dangerous trend for Djokovic at that tournament. He would drop at least one set against four more opponents in New York; by the time he made the final, he had little left and went down to defeat against Daniil Medvedev.

That hardly means the same thing will happen in Melbourne. But it might mean that Djokovic has helped introduce us to another future star. After that US Open, Rune went on to crack the Top 10 within two years. Will Prizmic rise as fast, or as far? His first name alone should make us hope that he does.