Alas, the ear-splitting noisemaker is here to stay. But today is no day to lament the persistence of Davis Cup. Serbia’s Novak Djokovic and John Isner proved again this weekend that playing for someone other than themselves forces the pros not only to find their best tennis, but to give us their personalities at their most fervent and concentrated—their truest. What does a player look like when he’s not allowed to cave, not allowed to pack it in, not allowed to default because of injury, not allowed to do anything other than find a way to win? Davis Cup brings it to you every time.
Isner and Djokovic, not surprisingly, are very different people and competitors when it's all on the line. The American’s DC debut was memorable for its stoic, if ultimately tragic, heroism. While he lost both of his singles matches, it wasn’t because he was overcome by the moment. Isner’s performances in his doubles win with Bob Bryan—he drilled the key shot of that match, a forehand pass to clinch the third set—and in his five-set loss to Djokovic showed that beneath the backward hat and gawky gait is a problem solver who keeps his emotions out of his way. When he lost a point this weekend, even a crushingly important point, he rarely did anything more than call for the towel and move on to the next one. Last year I talked to Isner after he’d been eliminated at Indian Wells. I knew he had a reputation as a practical joker—rubbing habanera pepper on his trainer’s toothbrush was a specialty—so I was surprised by how sober, how enclosed, how all-business he was during our conversation. And, despite a few choice swear words and a few less-than-choice double faults on break points, that’s the attitude he maintained through all five sets on Sunday. Like Fernando Verdasco in the DC final in 2008, Isner may have even proved something to himself in this tie that he can take with him for the rest of the season. Is it too early to designate him a dark horse—a very long snake in the grass—for Wimbledon?
Isner’s serve, especially the wide one in the deuce court, was crucial, of course, but he had the edge in many of the rallies as well. He hit his forehand past the speedy Djokovic, he passed well with his backhand, and he made a specialty of hitting drop volley winners while threatening to fall flat on his back. He also pulled off the gutsiest play of the day by following his second serve in at set point in the tiebreaker in the fourth. Like a lot of Isner’s plays this weekend, it wasn’t pretty—he slipped and stumbled through the frontcourt—but like a lot of those same plays, it worked.
The difference in the end was the court surface. On clay, Djokovic’s defense meant as much as Isner’s offense. More specifically, his ability to scramble to his forehand side was decisive. This has always been a weakness of Isner’s; while he has improved his movement, he still ends a lot of rallies waving at the ball at it streaks past him on his right. Djokovic, on the other hand, is fast enough to run in that direction and still flick the ball back at an acute crosscourt angle. The Serb, who, depending on your point of view, became either more intelligently conservative or more anxiously tentative when he needed a point, won with consistency and court coverage. But if this wasn’t his most impressive or spectacular win from a playing perspective, Djokovic was nevertheless must-see TV all weekend. He wasn’t just a tennis player. He was a drama in multiple acts. A few highlights of the Loco Djoko show:
After winning the first set 6-2 against Sam Querrey and looking to be cool, collected, and far the superior player, Djokovic lost the first two points of the next set on his serve. You might think the No. 2 player in the world would shrug this off without a second thought. You’d be wrong. Djokovic immediately started to breathe more deeply, to suck wind. He leaned back and put his hand over his nose, as if he were having trouble getting oxygen. He sighed and shook his head. He stared up to the heavens and down at his feet. He looked like the weight of the world had just been dropped onto his shoulders. And he hadn't even been broken yet. But he was soon after. In his anxiety, Djokovic got away from his game and began trying to end points too quickly. He popped up an awful drop shot to hand Querrey a break point. His fears were a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Events proceeded on similar lines through most of that set. Djokovic threw his hands in the air when Querrey hit a good shot, as if to ask how this could possibly happen to him. He snarled in the direction of his teammates and his entourage. When, down 1-4 and at 30-30, he reached back to hit an overhead, it appeared that he had lost all hope. Djokovic took out his frustration by hitting that shot as hard as he could, the way you might hit a shot if you were on the verge of tanking. But it went in. He won the point. He snuck out of the game. He started holding his head a little higher. He breathed easier. When he broke serve, he pounded his chest, and on the way to the sideline he did that little thing where he sticks his jaw out and puts his tongue in his cheek. It’s usually a sign that he’s feeling cocky again. He’d gotten his strut and his self-belief back as quickly as he’d lost them. Djokovic would go on to save five break points at 4-5 and win the set. Naturally, when he was broken early in the third set, he smashed his racquet in half. Never mind that he was still up two sets to none to a guy ranked 20 spots below him.
The rage, the fear, the strut, the wind-sucking, the cocky tongue-in-cheek, the highs and the lows experienced from one point to the next: That’s how Djokovic played all five sets against Isner. No wonder he struggles to keep it together after two weeks at a major; Davis Cup, with its four intense weekends spread out over the course of the year, should be his kind of event. I’ve written here that Rafael Nadal takes his fans along for the emotional ride when he plays. But he’s got a face of stone compared to what Djokovic showed us this weekend. When he was coming up a few years ago, I admired the guy for his steeliness and his resolve—he seemed cutthroat, a born winner. It hasn't worked out that way, but now I like him more. It turned out that, like a lot of us, Djokovic was a live wire whose reason and confidence are often blinded by emotion. Like a lot of us, he has trouble taking the long view and seeing beyond his success or failure in the point he has just played.
When Isner's final shot found the net and Djokovic had clinched the tie, he burst into tears. But I preferred his reaction to his first-set win, when he ran toward the net like a blind banshee. Normally, you might say this kind of thing was in bad taste—the match wasn't even close to being over yet. But after Djokovic had shown us all of his nerves and fears over the weekend, his crazed reaction to overcoming those fears didn't seem crazy or tasteless at all. It was touching.
Of course, five minutes later, after he was broken to start the second set, he smashed another racquet and sent it flying toward the bleachers. Never change, Novak. There are safer and smarter places to be, but no ride can compare to the roller-coaster.