Novak Djokovic reached the top of the tennis mountain on Sunday, edging past Casper Ruud in consecutive sets to win his third French Open men’s singles title and beyond.
With the most important championship of his remarkable career to date, Djokovic has established himself as the greatest men’s tennis player in history, with a record 23 Grand Slam singles titles.
Djokovic beat Ruud, 7-6(1), 6-3, 7-5. On the second match point, Djokovic made Ruud make a final forehand off the court and fell back. He then knelt in prayer in the middle of the field and made his way to the stands to hug his family and coaches.
Tournament after tournament, Djokovic has spent much of the past two decades chasing his rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the other two giants who have shaped the current era of tennis. this great. That race has come to an end, at least for now.
Djokovic, 36, overtook retired Federer last summer, at Wimbledon’s Center Court on the grass Federer has reigned for so long, when he won the 21st Grand Slam title. In January at the Australian Open, Djokovic wins again. That 22nd title was tied to Nadal, who missed this year’s French Open through injury.
On Sunday, with a crowd of fans waving Serbian flags and chanting his name with stars in their arms for the occasion, he won again, this time for the record books.
Retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady sits next to Jelena, Djokovic’s wife. French soccer star Kylian Mbappé and Swedish soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimovic sit a few rows from the pitch. American actor Jake Gyllenhaal, tennis icons Yannick Noah and Stan Smith and many French actors, singers, entrepreneurs and athletes were also in the stands.
Djokovic did just that on Philippe Chatrier’s red clay at the French Open, which Nadal has won a staggering 14 times. A silver statue of the Spanish champion swinging his forehand whip was just a hundred yards away.
Djokovic’s journey has not been smooth. It was filled with crisis after crisis, epic battles with Nadal and Federer on the court, early and mid-career seasons abandoned, some because he was injured, and some when he forced to miss tournaments because he will don’t give up on your principles. His most seemingly impossible task is to win the hearts of tennis fans who have long pledged them to the first two members of the so-called Big Three.
There’s also the simple math problem. In late 2010, when Djokovic was 23 years old and five years before his first major tournament, Federer had won 16 Grand Slam titles against Djokovic. Any suggestion that Djokovic could one day catch up to Federer, or even Nadal, who already has nine points, is absurd.
But then in 2011 dawned, Djokovic stormed the sport, winning the Australian Open and US Open championships and Wimbledon that year. He had a 41-match winning streak and a 10-1 record against Federer and Nadal. Tennis has never been the same.
There is not an explanation for what has happened since then. A new, completely gluten-free diet, giving up alcohol, and experimenting with spending time in a pressurized egg-shaped room have all earned credibility along the way. So his routine of stretching and calisthenics has turned Djokovic into a rubber band grip, potentially helping to limit his injury.
The rock-sized chip on his shoulder that Djokovic said he carried from his childhood while growing up during the war in Serbia was also unharmed.
Goran Ivanisevic, Djokovic’s current coach, who is originally from Croatia, described the Balkan fighting spirit in Djokovic’s DNA that no other player from outside the region can match.
Boris Becker, the retired German champion who coached him for three years, said that during a period when Djokovic lost a series of Grand Slam finals, he punished himself for an incident. recklessly that neither Djokovic nor Becker ever detailed. Becker said Djokovic learned to forgive himself, and after he did, he was liberated and started winning with indulgence.
The numbers since then defy simple explanation. With Sunday’s win, Djokovic reclaimed the top spot in the world for a record 388 week. In addition to his record for Grand Slam titles, he also holds the record for Masters 1000 titles, and in case any Nadal or Federer fan wants to blame him for just being a translator, Djokovic has a winning record against both Nadal and Federer.
Any hope that Ruud, 24, a stable and determined Norwegian playing his third Grand Slam final in 13 months, turned Sunday into something more than a celebration. The light dissipated at the end of a tough first match that ended in Djokovic’s signature style.
Andy Roddick, former world No. 1, famously said about Djokovic that “first he comes for your feet, then he comes for your soul”.
It’s about what Djokovic did to Ruud early on Sunday, on his way to history.
History said if Ruud had any chance of winning, he would have to win the first set. Over the years and hundreds of Grand Slam matches, Djokovic has only lost 5 times after winning the first set.
Ruud broke Djokovic’s serve to start the game and took an early lead as Djokovic played a shaky first set, headed overstretched and pushed forehands and backhands off the court as Ruud played mostly tennis. error-free and dangerous, characterizes the best moments of his career.
But then a Djokovic that the tennis world has known and feared for decades appeared. With Ruud serving 4-2, close enough to sniff the finish line in the first set, Djokovic enjoyed one of those classic serves where he ran from corner to corner, advancing and backward, keeping the score alive long after that. via. The match ends the way it usually does – with an exhausted opponent trying to get oxygen and throw the ball into the net.
Ruud will come close again, coming within two points of that set based on the power of a back-foot twirl. But Djokovic erased that threat with about a dozen hits over the next four points.
In most tennis matches, when a set turns to a tiebreak, the result is like a coin toss. That’s not how it works with Djokovic, not Sunday, not this whole tournament, and rarely on the biggest stages of this most recent mid-30s domination.
It is not an accident. Last week, he explained that when a tiebreak begins, his mind goes into a hyper-focused state as he uses everything at his disposal to “stay in the present,” as he describes it, and play each point according to its value.
He started this match with a forehand that dropped along the line, and finished it seven points later with another super strong forehand that Ruud didn’t even bother making, not that it was going to produce. difference. When it was over, Djokovic had played 55 points in tiebreaks throughout this tournament and was yet to commit a single regrettable foul.
For 1 hour and 22 minutes, Ruud was up against Djokovic, pitting him against sprints and tees for long stretches, and he had nothing but rubbery feet and a broken spirit. hurt to show it. Ruud struggled to find scraps, which he can’t always do, pushed the game past the three o’clock mark, stirred the crowd into a roaring wave in the third set and chanted “NOVAK” , NOVAK” and “RUUUUUUUUUD”. But after the first set it was only a matter of time.
Ruud has now played 11 sets against Djokovic in 5 games and lost every match.
In the fog of all this triumph, it can be difficult to recall periods of conflict, including recent ones. There were days in custody in Australia last year as he waited for his deportation hearing. But there was also that bad time in 2021, when he accidentally hit the lineman’s neck and was knocked out of the US Open. The following month, Nadal destroyed him in consecutive sets in the delayed French Open final. Djokovic appeared to take another walk in the wilderness.
Instead, he has come in a match when winning all four Grand Slams in 2021, toppling Nadal at Roland Garros along the way.
He won the first two this year. Even after 23 Grand Slam titles, history still has much to do.
