For 2 years, Novak Djokovic has been dreaming about New York.
He has had loads of success right here, profitable the U.S. Open 3 times. It’s the place he made considered one of his most well-known photographs, returning Roger Federer’s serve with a walloping forehand when he was down double match level of their semifinal in 2011.
His thoughts, although, has been caught on considered one of his lowest moments, simply earlier than the tip of his disappointing loss within the 2021 U.S. Open singles closing towards Daniil Medvedev.
Djokovic was one win away from nearly the one factor he has not achieved in his profession — turning into the primary man since Rod Laver in 1969 to win all 4 Grand Slams in a single 12 months. He sat in his chair on the sideline earlier than the ultimate sport listening to the group of 23,000 in Arthur Ashe Stadium, who had lengthy largely cheered for his beloved opponents, roaring for him as an alternative. He sobbed right into a towel.
He knew that New York crowds appreciated seeing greatness and historical past. He had felt and heard them pulling for him as quickly as he walked onto the courtroom, and so they had been nonetheless there for him as he sat on the sting of defeat.
“I fell in love with the New Yorkers and New York in a totally totally different means that day,” Djokovic stated throughout an interview on a quiet Wednesday night within the participant backyard outdoors the stadium.
After lacking the match final 12 months due to his refusal to be vaccinated towards Covid-19, Djokovic is lastly again on the U.S. Open. Like his assortment of Grand Slam singles titles, now numbering 23 and essentially the most of any man, the love he felt that Sunday two years in the past appears solely to have grown, on either side.
“I can not wait to have Novak again in New York,” Stacey Allaster, the match director, stated throughout a latest information convention.
Djokovic has all the time been a gladiator on the courtroom. He roars, kilos his chest, returns taunts from followers and smashes the occasional racket. He acquired himself defaulted from the 2020 U.S. Open when he swatted a ball in anger and inadvertently hit a line choose.
However now, at 36, he has grown into being relaxed and introspective off it. Whereas he has no scarcity of pointed political stances, which he doesn’t disguise, he additionally apologizes for being late, makes enjoyable of himself, and is straightforward with a smile. He desires individuals to love him, and he isn’t afraid to confess it.
The general public has seen extra of the latter because the French Open in June, when Djokovic overtook Federer and Rafael Nadal, his longtime rivals, within the race for essentially the most Grand Slam singles titles.
Followers packed the decrease bowl of Ashe for his first apply on the stadium final week. Amid cranking serves and banging backhand returns, Djokovic acceded to the shouted requests for his well-known tennis impersonations, mimicking the motions of Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick, Pete Sampras and others which are a part of a routine that started within the U.S. Open locker room in 2007, many championships in the past.
“Sort of a sign that I’m feeling very snug on the courtroom,” he stated afterward. “Good enjoyable. Optimistic vitality.”
Afterward, he instructed Allaster that it was top-of-the-line apply periods he had ever had.
When safety guards gave the sign that the hitting session was nearing its finish, kids — and loads of adults, too — pushed towards the sting of the courtroom, waving telephones and outsized tennis balls as they clamored for footage and autographs. Djokovic spent greater than 20 minutes working the sting of the courtroom like a presidential candidate on a rope line as followers from the opposite facet of it chanted his title, hoping to get him to come back over there subsequent.
He couldn’t. A fitness center exercise awaited. He has not come for an additional spherical of sympathy cheers. He’s learning movies of the highest competitors, holding to his strict routine, getting his sleep, consuming earlier than it will get too late, and watching each morsel of meals he places in his mouth.
Wednesday night time’s protein- and carbohydrate-packed dinner, eaten shortly after his fitness center session, was two salmon steaks, two giant baked candy potatoes, wholesome servings of small yellow potatoes and chickpeas, and a bowl of pasta with olive oil and contemporary greens.
“The matches are going to get more durable, extra demanding because the match progresses,” he stated between bites. “So I’m all the time considering upfront. I’m specializing in the subsequent problem, after all, however I even have at the back of my thoughts the long-term aim and the long-term plan, which is to win this match.”
A lot has modified since Djokovic final got here near profitable right here. He has turn out to be the elder legend of the game and solidified his standing as the best participant of the trendy period. Federer is retired. Nadal is recovering from surgical procedure and on the sting of retirement. Carlos Alcaraz, the 20-year-old Spanish upstart lengthy touted as the game’s subsequent massive factor, has emerged forward of schedule to meet each lofty expectation. He’s the U.S. Open’s reigning champion and the world No 1.
Fending him off, and all the opposite comers of the so-called subsequent subsequent technology (an ungentle swipe on the mid- and late-20-somethings like Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, whom Alcaraz has leapfrogged) is probably going the ultimate chapter of Djokovic’s profession. His Grand Slam rivalry this 12 months with Alcaraz, a uncommon and tantalizing intergenerational duel that pits uncooked expertise and athleticism towards inimitable expertise, is the story of the game.
Djokovic prevailed of their first match on the French Open, the place Alcaraz succumbed to stress-induced cramping, however misplaced in 5 thrilling units within the Wimbledon closing. Perhaps it was a torch-passing second. Perhaps not. Both means, Djokovic is having fun with himself. Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner of Italy and Holger Rune of Denmark, he stated, are members of a technology that unapologetically believes it’s able to beating him to win massive tournaments. They’re daring, and he loves that.
“My position these days is to forestall them from that,” he stated with the sly grin that has turn out to be a late-career trademark.
He can keep in mind when he was considered one of them, in his late teenagers and early 20s, displaying up in New York and, like many gamers earlier than him, being blown away by the scale and vitality of the town. For a child from a mountain city within the Balkans, even one who had traveled all through Europe for tennis, it was lots.
On his first go to, he stayed with household pals in New Jersey, commuting on daily basis to the Billie Jean King Nationwide Tennis Heart. Each time he sees an indication for the Midtown Tunnel, his ideas drift again to the innocence of that first journey in 2003.
Now he spends the week earlier than the U.S. Open at a resort in Manhattan, soaking within the vitality of the town, earlier than transferring along with his spouse and younger kids to a good friend’s property in Alpine, N.J. There, he switches into “lockdown mode” and finds peace and serenity among the many timber and nature, particularly on the times between matches, when he’ll usually apply with hitting companions there reasonably than trekking to Queens.
There may be one other benefit to that locale. Djokovic has heard loads of tales within the locker room of gamers who’ve fallen sufferer to the pull of the New York night time. A few of them contain his friends, and he might have even accompanied them to a membership or two in an earlier life.
“I used to be fortunate early on to have individuals round me that saved me at bay,” he stated. “However I did have freedom to discover and go round. Let’s say that I did get to know New York at night time as properly.”
That won’t occur this 12 months, not with the reminiscence of the loss to Alcaraz so contemporary in his thoughts and the younger Spaniard presenting a problem equal to Djokovic’s biggest duels with Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray in his prime. After that Wimbledon loss, Djokovic put his rackets away for 2 weeks and headed for Croatia and Montenegro to trip along with his household within the mountains and the waters he is aware of so properly. He pulled out of the Nationwide Financial institution Open in Toronto, citing fatigue.
The tennis schedule doesn’t indulge remorse and hindsight, although, and shortly it was time to start making ready for the subsequent quest, the tournaments that usually unfold within the sweltering, late-summer humidity of Cincinnati and New York. He skilled within the hottest occasions of European summer time days. Then he did two extra “massive warmth” exercises when he arrived in Cincinnati for the Western & Southern Open.
Good factor. Final Sunday’s closing towards Alcaraz was an enthralling, three-set slugfest that Djokovic received in a deciding-set tiebreaker that lasted practically 4 hours and pushed him to the sting of warmth stroke. Alcaraz cramped within the climactic moments. Djokovic known as it one of many hardest psychological and bodily challenges of his profession.
A grueling take a look at like that wasn’t actually part of his U.S. Open prep plan, however the intent was to win the match. It all the time is.
“The way you win and the way lengthy does it take, that’s one thing that’s unpredictable,” he stated. “Higher this manner than dropping a match like that, that’s for positive.”
Or, love and dreamy second apart, the one which occurred in New York the final time round. This 12 months, he hopes, one other type of dream awaits.