Djokovic happy to play long game in sealing fifth title
The legend of Novak Djokovic, a man who could probably look a great white shark in the eye without blinking, can only be bolstered by his extraordinary feat of winning the longest Wimbledon final in history.
Djokovic became the first man in the Open era to save championship points in a final here and still go on to win the title. He came through three tie-breaks – including the first 12-12 tie-break to be contested in singles, anywhere in the world – to edge Roger Federer by an unfamiliar-looking lengthy scoreline.
Not for the first time, Djokovic defied the vast balance of crowd support. There was a memorable moment at the end of the match when he stood and stared up into the screaming mass of fans – not saying anything, but just projecting a “Yeah, you and whose army?” kind of vibe.
Then he squatted down on his hips and performed his personal tradition of plucking a blade of grass and eating it.
It was his fifth championship here – an incredible feat for a man who grew up playing in empty swimming pools and had barely seen a grass court until he first came to Wimbledon in his late teens. And it came in such an epic that even chair umpire Damian Steiner lost count of the score in the final stages.
Jeff Bezos, the world’s most famous shopping magnate, was looking on from the Royal Box as the two greatest Wimbledon champions of this era took the court. Bezos could probably afford to buy Centre Court 100 times over, but you cannot put a price on this kind of final. At 4hr 57min, it outlasted the legendary 2008 showdown between Federer and Rafael Nadal by nine minutes, and came close to achieving the same transcendent drama down the final straight. “I’m the loser both times,” said Federer afterwards, “so that’s the only similarity I see.”
Despite that rueful comment, Federer managed to sound surprisingly sanguine about what must have been a difficult result to digest – as difficult, in its own way, as New Zealand’s defeat in the cricket World Cup, which seemed to be developing almost in parallel for those uber-sports fans who were following one drama on their phones while watching the other unfold in front of them.
“You take it on your chin, you move on,” Federer said. “You try to forget, try to take the good things out of this match. There’s just tons of it. Similar to 2008 maybe, I will look back at it and think, ‘Well, it’s not that bad after all’. For now it hurts, and it should, like every loss does here at Wimbledon. I think it’s a mindset.
“I’m very strong at being able to move on because I don’t want to be depressed about actually an amazing tennis match.”
The match was just over four hours old when Federer walked out to serve at 8-7 in the decider. After the first two points were split, he rifled down two aces to move to 4015: double championship point. A ninth Wimbledon title was on his racket. But he could not find a first serve. And Djokovic, who has form for fighting his way back from the precipice, was not going to give him a free point.
More than that, Djokovic produced a forehand passing shot on the second match point which echoed the one he delivered when Nadal had him break point down in the deciding set of last year’s semifinal. He is the surely the hardest man in the game to put away, not just in the modern era but perhaps of all time.
Many British tennis lovers will remember the way that Djokovic nearly derailed Andy Murray’s first Wimbledon title in 2013. That day, BBC radio commentator Jonathan Overend compared him to a Bond villain, suggesting that he might as well be stroking a white cat. Certainly there is a part of Djokovic which feeds off defiance, which relishes that sense of pushing back against the world. As he put it afterwards, “When the crowd chants ‘Roger’, I hear ‘Novak’.”
Having dodged a bullet – or two bullets, rather – Djokovic seemed to play more freely and began going after his groundstrokes with renewed pace and penetration. There was one more gigantic arm-wrestle still to come in his final service game of the match, as he looked to move into a 12-11 lead.
Straining every sinew to guarantee himself that deciding tie-break, he fended off two more break points, coming to the net both times to demonstrate his massive cojones.
Djokovic won 204 points yesterday to Federer’s 218, and was outdone on the winner count by 94 to 54. But some points are more equal than others in this crazy sport. When the pressure is at its most stifling, Djokovic often goes to a place that his rivals – even the greatest of them – cannot find.
That final set alone ran to 2hr 2min, and it was the meat of the match in every sense. Up until then, we had not seen both players reach top form at the same time. Djokovic’s level fluctuated unpredictably, and at times in the second set – which whipped by in just 25 minutes – he barely seemed interested.
That is just Djokovic’s way. On days like these, it almost seems as if he needs a crisis to bring the best out of him. He lifted dramatically in all three tie-breaks, so that he won seven points on each occasion while Federer finished with five, then four, then three. Perhaps Federer will recommend that the rule be reversed in time for next year’s Wimbledon.
“It was mentally the most demanding match I was ever part of,” said Djokovic. “Mentally this was a different level. I’m obviously thrilled and overjoyed with emotions to be sitting here in front of you as a winner.”