Novak Djokovic sending message that he's not tennis' Tiger Woods
— -- LONDON -- Ah, 2017, the year of the unimaginable and unexpected in men's tennis. First, Roger Federer, positively geriatric at 35, plays what he later describes as perhaps "the best 20 minutes" of his tennis career to win an epic final at the Australian Open. Then Rafael Nadal, 31, thought to be on the creaky-kneed downslope, rekindles his old form, conquers the European clay and rips his way to a 10th French Open.
And what of Novak Djokovic?
Who?
Djokovic, remember him? The Gumby-esque Serb who, prior to the past year, had been the steady and dominant force on the men's tour since 2011. Djokovic, three-time Wimbledon champion -- at his metronomic best, virtually unbeatable.
The 30-year-old is the No. 2 seed at Wimbledon this summer, judged by the fastidious wiseheads to have the second-best chance to hoist a fourth winner's trophy once the last ball has been struck. But other than the loose chatter about his personal life, or talk of the star-crossed changes among his coaching team, Djokovic is as overlooked a second seed as you'll ever see at a tennis Grand Slam. Given the considerable lack of buzz, you'd be forgiven for thinking he's seeded 22nd.
The thinking about Djokovic's chances, indeed about his future, has changed as fast as the many screaming down-the-line backhands he struck Thursday on a muggy Court 1. From the first ball it seemed more like a glorified practice than a real test. No surprise: 22-year-old Adam Pavlasek, a young Czech playing his second Wimbledon match, grew up idolizing Djokovic and couldn't seem to shake himself from nerve-induced idol worship.
Djokovic feasted on a steady diet of moderately spun, moderately paced groundstrokes. This wasn't a match, it was batting practice: 6-2, 6-2, 6-1. Pavlasek's game allowed the Serb to find an unhurried, comfortable, settled-down feeling. It should be remembered that when Djokovic feels that way -- settled and rhythmic -- he is as intimidating a force as the game has ever seen.
We tend to forget just how grindingly good, how suffocating Djokovic can be. We get lost in the worship of the now. We focus on the resurgent Federer and Nadal -- or last year's Wimbledon champion, Andy Murray.
Djokovic was upset in the third round last year at Wimbledon -- the earliest he'd fallen here since 2008. After that, he suffered defeat in the US Open final and the ATP Championship final, lost his grip on the No. 1 ranking, was upset early at the Australian Open, and walked meagerly from the court after a quarterfinal thrashing at the French, suffering through a 6-0 last-set loss to Belgium's Dominic Thiem.
A slump. True. A significant one. This past year, Djokovic has struggled through the equivalent of a midlife tennis crisis -- wavering, doubting himself, dogged by talk of unspecified personal woes that he has only obliquely addressed.
So, now, in a digitally primed world that changes at speeds and in ways we could never have previously imagined, a few months of existential angst suddenly casts the game's most dominant player as permanently damaged goods.
Hence, the back and forth at Wimbledon on Wednesday: Quoted in the Daily Mail, legend John McEnroe compared Djokovic -- who despite the woes had just won a Wimbledon tuneup, and whose 2017 record now stands at 30-7 -- with the struggling and quite likely done-with-golf Tiger Woods. "When he [Woods] had the issues with his wife and then he seemed to go completely off the rails and has never been even close to being the same player. So we're starting to say: 'Wait a minute, is this possible with him [Djokovic]?'"
Asked about the comments after Thursday's match, Djokovic declined to get climb into the muck. "John has a complete right to say -- anybody, really, in the world -- has a right to say what they want, and I respect that right. ... He's somebody that has earned that right because of who he is and what he has meant to the sport. ... I really don't take it in a negative way. ... I don't necessarily need to agree with it, but it's his right."
In professional tennis, the top players once seemed to live a much more self-reliant existence. Now, even among the middle ranks, it's all about the coaches and the co-coaches and the physical trainers and the strategy consultants, plus various other assorted agents and hangers-on. It's about the "support team" -- and no doubt the lanky Serb's changes in that area provide a real area of intrigue.
Longtime coach Marian Vajda was canned. After a successful three years, Boris Becker was kicked to the curb. Over the past year, Djokovic steadily shed his longtime backers. He sought solace in a controversial tennis coach who few on tour had ever heard of, Pepe Imaz -- a long-locked Spaniard who has spoken more about love and peace than the single-minded, kill-or-be-killed thirst to win.
Andre Agassi, untested as a coach, and often absent from the game since his 2006 retirement, now sits in Djokovic's box as his coach. More than any other living tennis player, Agassi knows about winning Slams when you're a big but overlooked name.
Twenty-five summers ago, Agassi came to Wimbledon as a man overlooked, a player ready to be discarded. Just a few weeks prior he'd suffered a straight-sets drubbing in the semifinals of the French Open courtesy of Jim Courier. Agassi had been one of the game's dominant players for years, yet he had never gone past the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, had skipped the tournament multiple times, and had lost the three Grand Slam finals he'd previously reached. Tennis' frosted flake, he was dubbed, alluding to the perception that he would wilt ingloriously under pressure -- and that he didn't have his life together off the court.
At Wimbledon that warm English summer, Agassi surprised everyone by producing one of the most stunning runs in the tournament's 131 years. He marched to the final, beating McEnroe easily in the semis, and then beating Goran Ivanisevic in a five-set thriller to win the first of his eight Grand Slams. Today, remarkably, Agassi is viewed as a former champion who has his life, and his priorities, in clear and focused perspective.
Djokovic certainly appeared clear and focused in his postmatch press conference Thursday. He spoke, as he has at every opportunity here, about loving the game and playing for the pure passion of it. He pondered his career over the past six years -- the highs and the lows and the costs -- with an introspection Agassi would approve of.
"When you're winning, your ego, your confidence is high," Djokovic said. "Everything is functioning well. Why would you change anything? [There were] many times, in the course of the last couple of years where I was going against the signals of my own body, where I was probably needing to take a break or rest or maybe skip a certain tournament. I wasn't doing it."
Then came the last 12 months. The buzz is gone. Expectations are dimmed. There's worry he will never be the same. "The interest rate and the payment," he said, "came later."
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