Can anyone halt the Novak machine?

SELDOM has a player made the brilliant look so businesslike. Ask Novak Djokovic to hit a winner for your life and he would most likely land it on the baseline. Subject him to a 34-shot rally and he would be sure to raise you one of 35. He is a compelling backboard, a bionic man. And soon he could be alone atop the Mount Olympus of his sport.

Once Roger Federer’s mark of 17 major triumphs looked impossible to equal, but Djokovic could have done so by the end of next year. Only injury can deny him. Ominously, though, the longer Djokovic lasted in his latest eclipse of Andy Murray, the more he acquired the sheen of a man burnished by a month’s break in the Seychelles.

It always seems to be the way for Murray. In Australia this year, as he was toiling through a brutal five-setter with Milos Raonic, Djokovic was convalescing in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, watching Netflix. In Paris the narrative was no different. While he had run over 10½ miles on court in his six matches, his Nemesis, who had made do with two fewer, had greater relentlessness in his legs.

Murray displayed impressive multitasking: in a few first-set minutes he managed to lose serve, break serve, execute a lob of such feathery delicacy that it almost qualified as haute couture, and even berate a French TV reporter for disturbing him. But it was still not enough to resist a self-possessed Djokovic with history on his mind.

He is in Rod Laver territory now, clutching the opportunity to match the great Australian as the only man to win all four majors in a single campaign, but he is reaching beyond this. Djokovic has made the Olympics a centrepiece of his year as he seeks to complete a “Golden Slam”.

Murray might never have expected to grace a final at Roland Garros, but he can claim greater affinity with clay than most. At only 15 he decided on a peerless claycourt education at the Sánchez-Casal Academy in Barcelona, the centre of excellence. Judy, his mother and herself one of the canniest coaches around, understood he needed to acquire the patience, guile and variety of pace that only clay could bring.

Of the 64 men who have won up to seven slams, nobody besides Murray has had to put up with losing eight finals. That he has not prevailed in more than two does stark disservice to a talent that will not be fully appreciated until long after he has stored away his racquet. Murray is a versatile allcourt talent and only the 10th man in the Open era to reach the final at all four slams.

The Murray-Djokovic dynamic has become a defining one in tennis. Paris was the eighth instalment of their duels in major finals, a mere two fewer than Federer versus Nadal. But Djokovic’s dominance has rendered it a painfully lopsided one. There used to be a time when Murray was bracketed with Ivan Lendl, his former coach, as a perennial page-boy on these occasions. But by the time Lendl had lost his eighth final of 11 to Pat Cash in 1987, he had already won five to Murray’s two.

It is all part of the galling injustice of sport. For where Djokovic streaks over the horizon towards more giddying feats, Murray, separated from the Serb by one week in birth and perhaps only 1% in natural ability, is fated never to accrue the silverware that should be his due. — ©

❛ Murray’s talent will not be fully appreciated until long after he has stored away his racquet