Obviously, there is something about Novak.
Novak — Nole to his pals — Djokovic, the Serbian tennis champion, is the best practitioner of his sport in his time, which professionally speaking began around 2003. Twenty years later, he beat Daniil Medvedev, Russian — you are not supposed to recognize “Russia” at tennis events, a shrewd wartime policy, no question — who beat him in the same final two years ago for his fourth title here, third this year following Melbourne and Paris.
Before this remarkable career, which he, at 36, insists is not over, he played tennis on Belgrade courts busted up and broken under NATO bombardments, hit against uneven walls, and ran for cover when he heard the hurricane screeching of approaching warplanes. He rose steadily, give or take some stumbles and readjustments, to the top. He has made a lot of money (three million yesterday), allowing him to corner the Balkan goat cheese market. He likes goat cheese; war child, somewhere in the back of his brain, he worries about shortages, about hunger. (READ MORE from Roger Kaplan: Americans Roll On at Flushing Meadows)
No question, he is the best. The greatest? That is an aesthetic, perhaps a moral question. But the best, just look at the stats. While it was no surprise he got to the final here, you may feel it was too bad. Ahead of all rivals in the Slam race and tied with the only other human — a female — to have won as many, Novak faces a challenge that distracts from seeing him as the great athlete he is: indifference.
At this point if he wins people say what else is new. If he loses they say he’ll win the next one.
It is not just the monotony of winning. Djokovic’s game is exciting in the sense that he gets and returns balls with a skill and consistency only two or three other players on the tour can match. But it is not dramatic. He plays defense. Defense is perfectly legitimate, even necessary. All top players master defense. But great players — great players go on offense. That is where they create the sport’s artistry while demonstrating their courage.
No one denigrates Djokovic’s artistry and courage. He makes bold shots, he dashes for impossible ones, stretching his body to the limit, stressing muscles and ligaments. His backhanded return of serve is a defense-into-offense gem which, like his endurance in rallies and his bulls-eye service points to the T, have taught two generations of tennis men — and women — to think the game anew. (READ MORE from Roger Kaplan: Once More, Serena)
He stands up for what he believes. He would not bend to the must-vax rules, even to the point of organizing a mini-Balkan tour at the height of the bug panic, which reportedly made him and some of his fellow players sick. You want to play, you take your chances; your free choice.
Some might say there is a responsibility factor that comes with courage, lest it become recklessness. We are all grown ups here, he would surely respond. We are all independent contractors, our job is to maximize the return on investment. Not the same as warrior leadership (so often wrongly compared to high level sports) where the job is to protect others, your men and your people.
The expectation was that last year’s winner, 20-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, would meet the 36-year old Djokovic for a rematch of their Wimbledon classic, which went to the Spaniard in five sets. But Carlos stumbled against Daniil Medvedev, while Djokovic met Ben Shelton in a semi that was not the best match of the fortnight but that raised the most wild hopes.
For here was a 20-year-old American who had just taken down his own friend, high-seeded Frances Tiafoe, and looked like the American answer to Carlos Alcaraz, not to mention the reward after twenty years without a USA win at a men’s Slam. In a superb young American cohort making the quarters, Shelton stood out as a mix of Jimmy Butler (he was on hand, volunteering as a ball-boy) and Steph Currey, fearless, pugnacious and free. He moved like a cheetah and leaped like a lion, clocked the fastest serve of the tournament (149 mph), and hear this, he’s a southpaw.
But of course Shelton, whose father was on the tour in the 1980s, is not a basketball player (which is not predicting what he would do one-on-one against anyone not in the NBA), he just plays fantastic tennis, almost entirely aggressive offense. He is extending the life of the serve-and-volley game now that the great John Isner has retired; he is going for the overhead smash, he is chasing down shots and whipping them back with the lightning that comes off his friend Tiafoe’s stick, or Jack Sock’s (who unfortunately is retiring too).
And, of course — but no, not of course, rather, as likely — he is not quite ready to breach the wall that is Djokovic, and he could not.
The competitive energy, despite the straight set loss, was easily worth the effort — the price, the time, the subway ride, the crowds — of watching, but, afterwards, the question that hung in the air was: Djokovic did that? Is that like him? (READ MORE from Roger Kaplan: Competition, Tradition, Manners at Wimbledon)
Not winning, no: what he did when he won. Ben Shelton has this little habit of making a hanging-up-the-phone gesture when he wins a match. He does it with his big teenager grin, much like Tiafoe’s, hey, we’re not old-school imperturbable non-demonstrative players, Arthur Ashe, Ken Rosewall, we’re bringing back the show — way back to Jimmy Connors, farther back even to Bill Tilden, make it fun. He hugs his opponent, gives him the old you’ll-make-it-next-time, that sort of thing.
This being the social media age, the phone meme caught on and Novak was aware of it. He did it after the last point, and he did it coldly, there was no mistaking the contempt. The handshake at the net was glacial.
Kicking the kid? Because he had, the score notwithstanding, feared the kid would kick him, or his thing? It was not the Novak we knew, or wanted to know. It was the Novak who threw temper tantrums for which we always found rationales, who played a little gamesmanship now then with the time clock or the body language; but it was worse because it was mean.
He said, no such thing, he liked the gesture and copied it from admiration, and he said Ben would do well, for sure. For sure.
Novak beat the no-country Daniil Medvedev on the last afternoon of the U.S. Open, three sets to none, the first two definitely competitive, including the tiebreak in the second. A fine match, thrilling even in the intensity of its long baseline rallies. Two defensive geniuses, the question was who’d crack. And for two sets, cracking meant just one point, one point.
Defensive geniuses. And, as is his wont, Novak redeemed the incident with the young Ben Shelton with a tenacity that was inspiring and pushed him — and Daniil as well — to surpass themselves in endurance. He slipped and fell and picked himself up, as did Medvedev. They were playing at the limit of endurance, all spent but for the will, and the will came through. They ran an average of 83 and 84 feet per point; it scarcely matters which was which, about 18,000 feet each over three hours and a quarter, hitting almost the same numbers of winners and unforced errors, aces and doubles. At the end, Novak could not hold back the tears and didn’t try, went to hug his young daughter, and crossed himself.
Sports are sports; they all did well, and the USTA made a ton of money, quite a bit of which they will give away to tennis and other educational programs. They celebrated equal pay and something called pride, and the U.S. military and 950,000 (est.) fans were very happy.
(And just as an afterword: Maybe something will be learned about health policy follies from the U.S. Open’s recent experiences. The tournament was played before empty seats at the height of the panic; then, it was opened on condition you showed proof of vaccination. Some players got exemptions, then exemptions were revoked, and the rule against flying in from abroad was enforced strictly when the bug was on the run — the reason Djokovic did not play last year — then this year they said all clear. So this year, several players, including such contenders as formed champion Dominic Thiem and high seed Ons Jabeur, got sick with what the tournament described as flu-like symptoms amidst a warning by New York health authorities earlier in the summer that a strain of the communist virus was circulating.)
