Goran Ivanisevic has seen it occur so many instances over the previous 4 years.
His star pupil, Novak Djokovic, exhibits as much as the apply courtroom in a foul temper, griping that his sport is a catastrophe, that he must get higher… at every little thing. His serve, his attacking play, even his backhand — one of many nice backhands tennis has ever seen — it’s all a large number.
There may be barely any acknowledgement of the resume, the 24 Grand Slam titles, the 74 different tour trophies, and greater than 1,000 match victories. He’s obtained to enhance, or he’s cooked.
“He’s loopy,” Ivanisevic stated of Djokovic with a shake of the top, halfway by final yr, when Djokovic was within the midst of yet one more of the best seasons any tennis participant has ever put collectively and nonetheless whining to his coach at each flip.
Superb tennis gamers typically specific a want to attempt to enhance, and Djokovic isn’t any totally different. Nevertheless it’s one factor to say it, and it’s one other factor to really do it, particularly after you’ve reached the head of the game, time and again and over.
In 2015, Djokovic stampeded by maybe probably the most ridiculous tennis marketing campaign any man has managed. It’s the season Djokovic typically mentions when he’s requested to decide on the perfect model of himself. That occurs rather a lot now, since he has rendered the best male of all time debate moot — the one individual left to match Djokovic with is Djokovic.
He has gained probably the most Grand Slam singles titles, probably the most Masters 1,000 titles, that are the subsequent largest occasions on the lads’s tour, and has spent extra weeks (406 and counting) ranked No 1 on the planet than anybody else.
He reached all 4 Grand Slam finals in that 2015 season and gained three of them (dropping on the French Open to Stan Wawrinka). He went wire-to-wire because the world No 1. He performed in 15 consecutive finals and gained 11 of them. There was a ‘Large 4’ again then that additionally included Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray. Djokovic went 15-4 towards these three and was 4-0 towards Nadal, his high rival.
Regular conduct after a season like that’s to only maintain doing what works. Djokovic doesn’t actually do regular conduct, and he doesn’t actually play tennis at this time the best way he did in 2015, when he defended the courtroom as few others might, then pulled rabbits out of hats, successful so many factors he had no enterprise successful.
That may be a far cry from Djokovic’s successful formulation final season, the one he’ll probably use to kickstart his 2024 this month in Australia. All of Djokovic’s greatest seasons share a theme — they get rolling in January in Australia, the place Djokovic is about to attempt to win an eleventh Australian Open males’s singles title. He gained his tenth final yr, probably the most in historical past.
He describes Australia as his “comfortable place”, a rustic the place he finds his groove, and nothing — not even pulled or torn muscle mass — can take him out of it. He has not misplaced a match on the ‘A.O.’ in six years.
“It’s vital to have the precise begin, sort of launch into the remainder of the season,” he stated in the course of the United Cup, the combined group competitors he performed earlier than 2024’s first Grand Slam. “The extra you win in a sure event, the extra snug and assured you are feeling each subsequent time you arrive.”
However Djokovic’s success is about a lot greater than good karma. It’s about determining how one can change his sport to accommodate his ageing physique, which he acknowledges doesn’t transfer in addition to it as soon as did, and to maintain up with the evolution of a sport that’s now far much less pleasant to defenders who wish to chase balls throughout the again of the courtroom and pull rabbits out of hats.
With the highest gamers hitting with extra energy and precision than ever, defending all day, fairly than making an attempt to take the initiative and end factors, has turn into more and more troublesome on the highest degree.
Djokovic has had three actually epic years — 2011, 2015 and 2023. In every of them, he gained three Grand Slam finals and armloads of different trophies.
Fortunately for us, his final epic season earlier than 2023 occurred simply after the revolution in superior tennis evaluation, making potential a revelatory deep dive into Djokovic then and now.
The metrics are the byproduct of ball and participant monitoring knowledge collected by high-speed cameras and analyzed in real-time from know-how developed by a British firm, TennisViz, and Tennis Information Improvements (T.D.I), a three way partnership of the ATP Tour and ATP Media.
These mixed efforts have delivered followers, gamers and coaches data that earlier generations might by no means dream of capturing, displaying whether or not a participant is attacking or defending on each shot; the standard of these photographs primarily based on the velocity, spin, and touchdown spot; how typically they win factors they shouldn’t — their so-called steal rating; how medical they’re at ending factors they need to win; and the way typically they win the all-important baseline battles that a lot of contemporary tennis has turn into.
The information tells the story of the evolution of Djokovic, from somebody who specialised in successful tennis wars of attrition, to somebody who now appears to assault at practically each alternative.
In numerical phrases, the adjustments could seem, on the floor, to be incremental, however in a sport that activates a handful of factors in every match, seemingly small adjustments may end up in massive variations. Keep in mind, Djokovic has gained 14 of his 24 Grand Slam titles since 2015.
It begins with the serve.
Djokovic’s serve is almost unrecognizable from 2015. Full props on that to Ivanisevic, who possessed a deadly serve in his enjoying days and has labored tirelessly with Djokovic since 2019, attaining startling outcomes. Djokovic’s first serve averaged 120.1 miles per hour in 2023, in contrast with 115.4 in 2015.
That’s not about improved racket know-how or lighter balls. The tour common has barely budged, rising from 116.1mph to 116.7.
That Djokovic serve is just not solely quicker but in addition touchdown in higher spots – 5 centimeters nearer to the strains in 2023 than in 2015, and eight centimeters nearer to them than the tour common. That’s vital it doesn’t matter what floor he’s enjoying on, however it may be particularly potent on the slick, quick ones of Melbourne Park, the place serves to the sideline corners slide off the courtroom nearly immediately.
Djokovic has lengthy been one of many nice serve returners in tennis historical past. He’s higher at that now, too. His return of his opponent’s second serve landed on the backhand wing on 47 per cent of factors in 2023, in contrast with 39 per cent in 2015, placing him in a much better place to assault.
As soon as the factors took form final season, Djokovic seized an attacking place 26 per cent of the time, in contrast with 21 per cent in 2015. Tennis geeks confer with a participant’s potential to win factors from an attacking place because the ‘conversion fee’. Final season, Djokovic’s conversion fee was a medical 72.1 per cent, high within the sport and three.3 proportion factors larger than his conversion fee of 68.8 per cent in 2015. The tour common is 66 per cent.
How did he turn into so medical? His forehand obtained two miles per hour quicker over the previous eight years. That helps.
Additionally, his attacking place was 60 centimeters additional into the courtroom than it was in 2015, that means he’s hitting the ball far sooner than he used to, suffocating opponents by stealing break up seconds from their restoration and preparation instances.
The results of his rising aggressiveness was a lower in how a lot he needed to defend, what number of balls he needed to chase down, and what number of rabbits he needed to pull out of hats. Tennis geeks confer with that as a participant’s ‘steal rating’, which is the share of factors a participant wins after being in a defensive place.
As thrilling as it’s to claw again a degree that seems misplaced, it’s exhausting and critically arduous on a 36-year-old physique. Nobody is aware of that higher than Djokovic.
In 2015, Djokovic and Nadal co-led the game with a steal rating of 43.3 per cent. That’s sort of loopy to consider — nearly half the time their outgunned opponents had Djokovic and Nadal on the run, these poor overmatched souls nonetheless misplaced the purpose.
Final season, Djokovic’s steal rating was a far much less miraculous 36.4 per cent, nonetheless above the tour common of 34 per cent and rather a lot kinder to these 36-year-old knees. In different phrases, he’s nonetheless higher than most at making magic occur when he must, however he’s turn into a lot extra environment friendly that he’s successful with out expending as a lot vitality.
It’s a logical technique for any ageing nice. Federer turned extra aggressive, and Nadal has tried to as properly, coming to the online to complete factors when the alternatives are there. However Djokovic has been extra profitable than each, successful so most of the largest titles within the sport at this level in his profession.
For opponents, there actually is just one resolution: assault earlier than he assaults, make him run, and pressure him to play extra defensively, the best way he did throughout his earlier tennis life.
Simpler stated than completed, after all.
The successful formulation has Djokovic setting massive targets for 2024. “It’s not a secret that I wish to break extra data and make extra historical past,” he stated. “That’s one thing that retains motivating me.”
He needs extra Grand Slam titles, an Olympic medal, which has by some means eluded him, a Davis Cup with Serbia. He relishes thrashing the younger weapons — gamers two tennis generations faraway from him who can’t perceive how he has refused to provide method.
Djokovic battled a wrist harm in the course of the United Cup. However anybody banking on that stopping him ought to keep in mind him successful the Australian Open final yr with a critically injured hamstring that Ivanisevic stated would have brought on most different gamers to give up and, in 2021, with a tear in an stomach muscle.
“I do know what I have to do to keep up my physique and thoughts and spirit within the optimum state to have the chance to interrupt data and to go additional,” Djokovic stated.
He nonetheless likes to play tennis, however successful continues to be the first motivation, particularly when he’s on the street and away from his household for weeks at a time.
“That mentality is just not altering for 2024 or any subsequent yr doubtlessly that I play,” he stated.
How he really performs the sport, properly, which may be one other, ever-evolving story.
Simply ask Ivanisevic.
(High picture: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP through Getty Photographs)