Novak Djokovic started his day picturing how it could finish, holding his youngsters in his arms, elevating one other Grand Slam event trophy above his head and singing his nationwide anthem as Serbian followers chanted and danced and celebrated his third French Open males’s singles title and far more.
On Sunday at Roland Garros, Djokovic defeated Casper Ruud, 7-6 (1), 6-3, 7-5, to seize a report twenty third Grand Slam singles title, persevering with a shocking turnaround from a yr and a half in the past, when he was deported from Australia forward of the primary Grand Slam event of 2022, a dire harbinger of the yr to return. After Ruud’s remaining forehand sailed off the court docket, Djokovic dropped his racket and collapsed onto his again on the purple clay. It was simple to understand the drama.
“The hardest one for me to win,” Djokovic stated of the French Open.
Moments later, after a congratulatory hug from Ruud, Djokovic knelt in prayer in the midst of the court docket, then headed for the stands to embrace his household and his coaches. When he got here again onto the court docket moments later, he was carrying a jacket with “23” emblazoned below his proper shoulder.
Djokovic, 36, has spent many of the final twenty years chasing his rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, two different giants who’ve outlined this period of contemporary tennis. That race has come to an finish, a minimum of for now.
“These two guys, the previous 15 years, had been occupying my thoughts rather a lot,” Djokovic stated as he sat subsequent to the championship trophy.
Djokovic surpassed Federer final summer time, only a few months earlier than Federer’s retirement, successful his twenty first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon’s Centre Court docket on the grass that Federer had dominated for thus lengthy. In January on the Australian Open, Djokovic gained once more. That twenty second title tied Nadal, the Spanish champion who missed this yr’s French Open with an damage.
With a solid of stars available for the event, he made his historical past on the purple clay of the Philippe Chatrier court docket on the French Open, which Nadal has gained an astonishing 14 occasions. A silver statue of Nadal bullwhipping his forehand stands simply tons of of yards away.
The retired N.F.L. quarterback Tom Brady sat subsequent to Djokovic’s spouse, Jelena. The French soccer star Kylian Mbappé and the Swedish soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic sat a number of rows above the court docket. The American actor Jake Gyllenhaal, the tennis icons Stan Smith and Yannick Noah, and plenty of French actors, singers, businessmen and athletes had been additionally among the many spectators.
This was a momentous step in a journey full of self-inflicted crises, epic battles with Nadal and Federer on the court docket, and early and midcareer fallow seasons, some as a result of he was injured and a few when he missed tournaments as a result of he wouldn’t waiver from rules that stored him a staunch opponent of the Covid-19 vaccination. His most seemingly unimaginable job has been successful the hearts of tennis followers who way back pledged them to the primary two members of the so-called Huge Three.
On the finish of 2010, when Djokovic was 23 years previous and 5 years previous competing in his first main event, Federer had already gained 16 Grand Slam titles to Djokovic’s one.
However in 2011, Djokovic started to storm the game, successful the Australian and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon. He put collectively a 41-match successful streak and a 10-1 report towards Federer and Nadal. Tennis has by no means been the identical.
Possibly it was his new, gluten-free food plan, or forsaking alcohol, or the time spent in a pressurized chamber. Possibly it was the stretching and calisthenics routine that turned Djokovic right into a racket-wielding rubber band and has him “nonetheless shifting like a cat,” as his coach, Goran Ivanisevic, stated Sunday night.
The boulder-sized chip on his shoulder, which Djokovic has stated he has carried since rising up through the battle in Serbia, hasn’t damage both.
Ivanisevic, a Croat, has described a Balkan preventing spirit in Djokovic’s DNA that nobody who has come from exterior the area can match within the greatest matches.
Boris Becker, the retired German champion who coached him for 3 years, has stated that Djokovic wanted to cease punishing himself for an indiscretion that neither Djokovic nor Becker has ever talked about intimately. As soon as he did that, Becker stated, he turned liberated, and commenced successful with abandon.
The numbers since then defy easy clarification. Together with his win Sunday, Djokovic regained the world’s prime rating for a report 388th week. Along with the report for Grand Slam event titles, he additionally holds the report for Masters 1000 titles. In case any Nadal or Federer followers wish to fault him for being a mere compiler, Djokovic has a successful report towards each of them.
Feeling worn out from his semifinal win over Carlos Alcaraz, Djokovic skipped apply on Saturday and looked for tranquillity on a stroll within the woods. It was a very good determination.
Any hope that Ruud, 24, a gentle and decided Norwegian enjoying in his third Grand Slam remaining in 13 months, had of turning Sunday into one thing aside from a coronation dissipated on the finish of a grinding first set that concluded in Djokovic’s signature trend. Throughout all these years and tons of of Grand Slam matches, Djokovic has misplaced solely 5 occasions after successful the primary set.
Andy Roddick, a former world No. 1, famously stated of Djokovic that “first he comes to your legs, after which he comes to your soul.”
Ivanisevic added to that evaluation Sunday: “Then he digs your grave and you’ve got a funeral and also you’re useless. Bye-bye. Thanks for coming.”
That was about what Djokovic did to Ruud early on Sunday, on his solution to historical past.
Ruud broke Djokovic’s serve to begin the match and surged to an early lead as Djokovic performed a shaky first few video games, muffing overheads and pushing balls off the court docket as Ruud performed the largely error-free and deceptively harmful tennis that has characterised the perfect moments of his profession.
However then the Djokovic that the tennis world has come to know and concern the previous dozen years emerged. With Ruud serving at 4-2, shut sufficient to smell the first-set end line, Djokovic indulged in a kind of basic grinding rallies, operating from nook to nook, ahead and again, conserving the purpose alive lengthy after it ought to have been over. It ended the best way it typically does — with an exhausted opponent struggling for oxygen and dumping a ball into the web.
“A bit devastating,” Ruud stated.
In most tennis matches, when a set strikes to a tiebreaker, the result comes all the way down to a flip of a coin. That’s not the way it works with Djokovic.
Final week, he defined that when a tiebreaker begins, his thoughts strikes to a state of hyper focus to “keep within the current,” play every level on its advantage and provides nothing away.
He began this one with a lunging forehand winner down the road, and completed it seven factors later with one other blasted forehand that Ruud didn’t even trouble making a run at, not that it could have mattered. When it was over, Djokovic had performed 55 factors in tiebreakers throughout this event and had but to make an unforced error.
For an hour and 22 minutes, Ruud had gone toe to toe with Djokovic, matching him dash for dash and shot for shot for lengthy stretches, and he had nothing however a rubbery set of legs and a broken psyche to point out for it. Ruud caught round for the scrap, pushing the match previous the three-hour mark. However after that first set, it was only a matter of time.
Within the fog of all this successful, it may be troublesome to recollect Djokovic’s stretches of strife, even the more moderen ones. There have been these days when he was in custody in Australia final yr as he awaited his deportation listening to. However there was additionally that ugly time in 2020, when he by accident swatted a ball into the throat of a line decide and was tossed out of the U.S. Open. The subsequent month, Nadal destroyed him in straight units within the remaining of a French Open delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. Djokovic appeared headed for one more stroll within the wilderness.
As a substitute, he got here inside one match of reaching a Grand Slam, almost successful all 4 Grand Slam tournaments in 2021, toppling Nadal at Roland Garros alongside the best way.
He has gained the primary two Grand Slam occasions this yr.
“The journey remains to be not over,” Djokovic stated. “If I’m successful Slams, why even take into consideration ending the profession?”
He could also be alone with 23 Grand Slam titles, however in his eyes, there’s extra historical past to play for.