WIMBLEDON, England – While the French Open has long been Rafael Nadal’s time, Wimbledon has become Novak Djokovic’s time.
He is still not the best turf player of this Darwinian era in men’s tennis. Roger Federer, 40, absent from this year’s tournament, still achieves that mood with his eight individual titles at the All England Club. But Djokovic, who used to put on a home replica of the winner’s trophy in his youth, has certainly been the best in recent years with his acrobatic style and fit to the baseline, and is certainly the best turf player. Of the world. the men’s field as Wimbledon’s main box starts Monday.
“It’s hard not to make Novak the prohibitive favorite,” said Paul Annacone, one of Federer’s former coaches. “People talk about preparation and the lack of matches and stuff like that, but the thing is, when you’ve played so many times at Wimbledon and been there in the end so often, I don’t think it’s that important.”
Bjorn Borg, the stone-faced Swede, broke the mold in preparation for Wimbledon, winning the event five times in a row between 1976 and 1980 without playing an official warm-up tournament on grass. But the mold was repaired and re-deployed for nearly 30 years before Djokovic broke it again, perhaps permanently.
He has won five of his six Wimbledon titles – 2011, 2014, 2015, 2019 and 2021 – without playing any tuning events on the tour and will try to do the same again this year as he tries to win Wimbledon for the fourth time in a row. .
“Every day you can rest a little and restart helps you,” Djokovic said. “But then, we’re all different.”
Speaking of turf tracks, he added: “I didn’t have too much trouble adapting quickly to the surface. Over the years, I also learned to play more efficiently on the surface. At the beginning of my career, I was still struggling with movement and sliding. “
Djokovic, who on Monday will open the match on the central court against South Korean Kwon Soon-woo, not a top seed, has not played an official match since his deflated and frankly bewildered defeat to Nadal in the quarter-finals of the ‘French Open. Djokovic looked like he had weathered the storm of the debut Christmas outing, but he couldn’t keep up his momentum and then advanced to the fourth and final set.
He spent some downtime with his wife, Jelena, and two young children before arriving in London to play – and play very well – at the grass court event last week at Hurlingham Club.
Nadal followed the same pattern, running the clock to recover from a radiofrequency ablation, which dampens nerves by using radio waves, to treat a left foot injury before playing, not so convincing, and Hurlingham. Unlike his archirival Djokovic, Nadal has never won Wimbledon without an official turf tournament. His two titles, in 2008 and 2010, came after competing at the Queen’s Club, and unlike Djokovic, Nadal has not played at Wimbledon since 2019.
The tournament was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, and last year Nadal missed it due to the chronic foot problem that has continued to be his concern throughout his magnificent 2022 campaign. intermittently. He won the first two stages of the Grand Slam: the Australian Open in January and then the French Open this month despite having to have painkillers to numb his left foot before the seven rounds in Paris.
But he said Saturday that radiofrequency treatment had soothed his daily pain and given him the freedom to aggressively push his left foot, and it certainly looked like there was a spring in his step and an urgency for his mood while practicing during practice. weekend at the All England Club.
“First, I can walk normally most days, almost every day,” he said. “This is the main problem for me. When I wake up, I don’t have that pain I’ve had for the last year and a half, so I’m very happy about that. ”
Beware, world, but even though Nadal has moved mountains in 2022, it will still be a difficult battle to reach Djokovic’s level on the grass.
They can only be found in the final as the top two seeded leaders of the tournament, with the absence of first-placed Daniil Medvedev and second-ranked Alexander Zverev. Medvedev, a Russian, is among the exclusive Wimbledon players this year due to the Ukrainian war. Zverev, a German, broke his right ankle ligament in his semi-final defeat to Nadal at the French Open on 3 June.
But there are still clear threats and with great service for a Djokovic-Nadal rematch, which would be a 10th Open Era men’s record duel in a Grand Slam final.
Hubert Hurkacz, a friendly Pole who upset Federer last year in the quarterfinals, is an expert on grass courts and damaged Medvedev to win the title in Halle, Germany, this month. He is halfway through Djokovic’s draw at Wimbledon. Matteo Berrettini, the powerful Italian who lost to Djokovic in last year’s Wimbledon final and just won turf tuning events in Stuttgart, Germany, and at the Queen’s Club, is in the middle of Christmas.
But Nadal, who faces Francisco Cerundolo, an Argentine not a top seed, in the first round on Tuesday, could make a big advance test if he faces Sam Querrey of the United States in the second round.
Querrey’s ranking has fallen, but he is still dangerous on the pitch and is the last man to defeat Djokovic in a completed match at Wimbledon, which upset him in the third round in 2016, when Djokovic started a sting that it would last almost two years.
Djokovic is in another difficult phase, in part because of himself, as, unlike any other top-tier male tennis player, he refused to be vaccinated against Covid-19. This led to his deportation from Australia in January before the Australian Open and could keep him out of the US Open later this year unless the United States lifts the entry ban for unvaccinated foreigners.
“Of course, I’m aware of that,” Djokovic said. “This is an additional motivation to do well here. I hope to be able to do a very good tournament, as I have done in the last three editions. Then I will just have to wait and see it. I would love to go to the United States, but as of today this is not possible “.
He has only played 21 games in 2022: fourteen fewer than he had played in that same stage last season. But the turf, once the main surface of professional tennis, is now a secondary spectacle and an acquired taste. Djokovic, who liked to chew a blade of grass on the center court after his Wimbledon titles, has clearly acquired it.
As the best returner in men’s tennis, you can still break the service on a server-friendly surface. As the most flexible player in men’s tennis, he can lean in all sorts of positions to deal with the lower rebound on the turf. You can also close the bottom line and also keep opponents out of balance with service and volley at high points.
“It’s a rough recipe,” Annacone said. “And while we’re talking about how much he dominates on the hard courts, his winning percentage is really higher on the turf.”
That’s right: your winning percentage in your individual career is 84 percent on hard tracks, just a shadow below your 85 percent on turf.
Now, in an unfavorable season, it’s time for the legitimate Wimbledon favorite to try to widen that gap and narrow the gap with Nadal, who has 22 individual Grand Slam titles to Djokovic’s 20.