NOVAK QUASHES CRISIS TALK
Poor grass is ex-champ’s only problem
FOR someone described by John McEnroe last week as tennis’s answer to Tiger Woods, Novak Djokovic is not doing too badly. He is into the fourth round of Wimbledon for the loss of just 19 games, and on the evidence of the first week may well be the player who emerges from the bottom half of the draw to make next Sunday’s final.
If there was any cloud on his horizon it was the state of the court, about which he became the latest player to express fears. While not worrying for his safety, Djokovic feels the Centre Court is not in optimum condition: ‘Today I could see there is a difference in grass. It was a bit softer, especially around a couple feet inside and outside the baseline area,’ he said after a 6-4, 6-1, 7-6 win over Ernests Gulbis.
‘I haven’t had that kind of experience before in Wimbledon, to be honest, the courts are always perfect here. Obviously different weather conditions can affect the quality of the grass, I would assume. The more you play on it, the worse it is, obviously.
‘I was hearing a lot of comments from the other players. They were complaining. Especially on the outside courts.
‘You don’t have as much grass already now end of the first week. But I’m sure that the groundsmen will try to do everything possible to make it playable for the athletes as much as they can in the second week.’
It was on the middle Saturday a year ago that, on Court One, he went out at the same third-round stage to Sam Querrey. It sparked what became, by his lofty standards, something of a downward spiral from which he has yet to truly emerge.
Yet there are indications that he is back on an upward trajectory again, and the sharpness he showed against albeit overmatched opposition suggests that adding to his Grand Slam haul a week today is not beyond him.
The commentating Boris Becker, his former coach, praised his attitude and Djokovic confirmed: ‘He’s right, the passion is back.’
He certainly cut a different figure from the one who lost to Querrey and has had numerous setbacks, not least his submission in the French Open quarter-final last month when losing to Dominic Thiem.
How much this is to do with the addition of part-time coach Andre Agassi, sitting in the stands with his bald pate slathered in sun cream, is a moot point. Alongside Agassi is the former leading Croatian player Mario Ancic, now a lawyer in New York.
Djokovic has been prepared to think outside the box, not least in his decision to head to the seaside and play in Eastbourne the week before Wimbledon, where he gained essential matchplay.
The fact is that at his rarefied level it does not matter what provides that extra something that he can draw upon. Whatever it is, he looks far more like a top player than he often has in the past year, and his peak grass-court game is as good as anyone’s.
In the third game of the third set Djokovic played what might be the shot of the tournament, sprinting wide almost into the photographers’ pit and curling a passing shot into the corner.
There was the odd problem with his movement around the rutted areas at the back of the court but that looks like being an occupational hazard for all players amid the continuing high temperatures.
Gulbis is a former world No 10 who missed the second half of last year with a wrist injury and is, clearly, much better than his depressed ranking, which meant he only got in the draw as a special exemption for players on their way back from ailments. The son of a reputed billionaire, his motivation has waxed and waned in his career, but he looked as if he had come to play in the opening exchanges, breaking a tetchy Djokovic for 2-1 and forging a 4-2 lead by virtue of his enormous groundstrokes and 136mph serve.
But, short of recent matches, he was never likely to keep up that consistency and once Djokovic got his returns going he reeled off nine straight games. To Gulbis’s credit he managed to avoid a rout, requesting manipulation of his lower back after the second set.