No Djok, this story is Grand!
Sunday is the greatest day in the history of this country’s national championship in men’s tennis, certainly in Queens, because the greatest men’s player of all time, Novak Djokovic, goes for the first calendar Grand Slam since Rod Laver won his second on the grass of West Side Tennis Club more than 50 years ago. And Djokovic should be cheered at Arthur Ashe Stadium because of that, right through that fancy roof.
It doesn’t mean that anybody should cheer against Daniil Medvedev. Medvedev absolutely has enough game to knock off Djokovic, and stop history, because for my money he is the second-best player in the world right now.
You cheer him on Sunday. But not like you cheer Djokovic. It is what we do in New York for talent like this and stakes like this, in as much a heavyweight championship as has ever been seen, because of the stakes. In September of 2021, Djokovic not only tries to separate himself from the other 20-major guys, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and win No. 21 for himself, in what would be his own grand 2021 moment. He does something else:
Gets the chance to prove, once and for all, that there has never been a bigger winner in his sport at the storied theaters of the sport, men’s or women’s tennis. Serena has won more. Djokovic has won in the time of Federer and Nadal.
His game is not as pretty as Federer’s. He has never brought the drama to the fight that Nadal has. But there has never been a better tactician than Djokovic, never been anyone better at turning defense into offense. And there has never been a tougher player, not Jimmy Connors, not Nadal. Not anybody. It was Connors who famously told me one day that Nadal “plays like he’s broke.” So does Djokovic. Now here he is, in the big city, trying to do something this big, trying to win the calendar Slam. And No. 21. Never a better record than his, or a better all-around tennis player. You cheer that Sunday.
Of course the noise the Open has made for Djokovic has built across these two weeks, one of the most entertaining and surprising Opens we have ever had, both in the men’s draw and the women’s draw, even without Federer and Nadal and Serena and their 63 majors. Those cheers should be bigger than ever on Sunday.
What Djokovic has done here over the past two weeks, what he might do on Sunday, doesn’t change him hitting that lineswoman with a ball last year and getting bounced from the Open. It doesn’t change his boneheaded opinion on vaccinations. This is about the tennis he is playing and the tennis he has always played.
“I am going to treat the match on Sunday like the last match of my career,” he said on Friday night after beating Sascha Zverev in five sets.
He treats them all like that. He has already had two years in his career when he won three of four majors. There was already a point in his career when he held all four majors at the same time. He came along at a time when Federer and Nadal were already dominating men’s tennis, on their way to winning 20 majors each, and he took both of them on and beat them, to the point where he has a winning record against both of them. Again: Nobody has ever had a record like his, because he had to compete against records like those. We used to talk about Federer vs. Nadal. No. The great rivalry in men’s tennis history is Djokovic against Federer and Nadal.
Serena is the best women’s player of all time, one hundred percent. But her toughest opponent, when you add it all up, was her sister Venus. Djokovic had to take on Fed and Rafa. And for now, at Ashe Stadium on Sunday, he is the last man standing.
Those who love Federer the way they do will never give Djokovic his due. It is the same with Nadal, even as skewed as his own record is because he has won an amazing 13 titles at just one place, meaning the French Open. Djokovic has won everywhere and beaten everyone, and now there is one more match for him to win, against Medvedev and Mr. Laver and history.
He has gotten in his own way. There have been times when as much as he wants the crowds to love him he has managed to turn them against him. But there has never been a men’s tennis player like him, and that includes Mr. Laver, who won the Grand Slam as an amateur in 1962, turned pro, didn’t get to play the majors again until Open tennis became a reality. And came back and won the Grand Slam again. He was always something elegant and fine to see. But it was a different world then. As deep as men’s tennis could be in his day, he didn’t have to spend his whole career going head to head with the likes of Federer and Nadal.
Novak Djokovic has. Whether he makes it to the Grand Slam or not on Sunday, with Mr. Laver in attendance, appreciate what you are seeing, appreciate the tennis life he has had. And honor it. Appreciate the fact that he is trying to do what he is trying to do at the age of 34, at an Open where a 19-year-old young woman and an 18-year-old young woman played for our national championship in women’s W tennis on Saturday. e like big guys in New York. There has never been one bigger in tennis than Novak Djokovic, win or lose against Medvedev. You cheer guys like that, especially here.