In Full Fight

INDIAN WELLS, Calif.—If you’ve ever suspected that the pros are fundamentally different from the rest of us—more assured, less anxious, tougher all around—Sunday’s two finals here should make you think twice about that notion. Jelena Jankovic and Novak Djokovic each raced through the first set of their matches and stood on the brink of triumph, just a serve or two from victory, at the end of the second set. Yet in that moment both of them were so seized by nerves that they couldn’t take those final few, seemingly simple steps.

Djokovic eventually made it across in the third set, but Jankovic never got there. Watching, it reminded me of what another pro once said about anxiety and tennis. “I choke in every match,” John McEnroe once admitted, speaking for all of us. “It’s how I cope with it that matters.”

Here’s a look back at how Djokovic and Jankovic, as well as their respective opponents, Roger Federer and Simona Halep, coped with trying to win this year’s titles at Indian Wells.

Jankovic walked into the interview room after her 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 defeat to Halep, plopped down in her chair, and sighed.

“Why the heavy sigh, JJ?” This would normally be a little cheeky as far as first questions to a losing player go, but Jankovic isn’t your normal player. She didn’t mind.

“I could sigh again,” she said. “I could sigh a couple more times. I mean, where to begin?”

Jankovic said she thought this final was a “great fight,” and that she and Halep “ran all over like two dogs." But JJ didn’t try to hide that she had lost her nerve while trying to close out the match at 4-3 and 5-4 in the second.

“I think we all get nervous,” she said, echoing McEnroe. “It’s part of being a professional athlete. It’s just a matter of how you control them...Overall it was a long two weeks. I was full of emotions, like I was just overwhelmed and excited that I’m in the final and I put myself in a position to win. It’s almost like a dream.”

The 30-year-old Jankovic played throwback tennis all week, and she had finished her matches with authority each time; four of her wins came in three sets. She was even better through the first set and a half against Halep, taking charge of points and hitting her overhead and her down-the-line backhand—the shot “that pays the bills,” according to JJ—with total freedom and confidence.

As the match progressed, though, she got out of that aggressive rhythm and began trying to moonball Halep. It wasn’t a bad idea in theory; Halep is 5’3”, and she had trouble controlling the ball above her shoulders. But the tactic ended up working against Jankovic, as she began to guide her forehand. By the end of the second set, when things were tight, she wasn’t swinging freely anymore. When she needed her best, she didn’t have it. Soon, her serve had collapsed as well. Jankovic would end up being broken nine times, double-faulting nine times, and committing 61 unforced errors.

“I was being tentative,” she said, “that was a mistake.”

It didn’t help that by the end of the second set, the sun was out and it was hot. JJ didn’t just look tentative; she looked exhausted. The mental and physical aspects of the game were conspiring against her: The more nervous Jankovic got, the more tired she became; the more tired she became, the more anxious she got that she wouldn’t be able to close. By the time Jankovic called her coach, Chip Brooks, over before she served for the match at 5-4, she sounded as if she had given up hope. “This is what you play for!” he reminded her, but she wasn’t buying it.

“My arm was super heavy," she said later. "I couldn’t even lift it."

The finish line of a tennis match can be a funny place, and the ultimate example of the fight or flight syndrome. You want to be there, you’ve worked for months to be there, but when you finally get there, you want to run in the other direction. From my own experience, it can take surprisingly little to make someone give up right at the moment he or she is about to win—the final fight is too much.

It also doesn’t help to have an opponent who isn’t giving up. For much of the day, Halep’s timing was as off as Jankovic’s was on. She made 47 unforced errors against just 22 winners, and, as she often does when she begins to lose, she rushed ahead and lost some more. Halep’s backhands landed tamely in the net, and her forehands flew long. But that’s exactly why this was not only the biggest title of her career, but also, perhaps, the most important. She did it with nothing but fight.

“First of all,” Halep announced when she walked into the interview room. “I don’t know how I won today because I didn’t play my best. I didn’t play like good tennis, but I just wanted to fight until the end because I think that’s the most important thing for my style, for myself...I didn’t play my best tennis [at this tournament], but every match was important for me, for my mind, for me mentally.”

During a third-set visit, her coach, Victor Ionita, told Halep to “not to rush,” and to “play with more safety.” Those turned out to be the right words at the right time. But Halep also had a piece of advice for her coach: “I told him to say ‘come on’ a lot," she joked, "because I needed it.”

Will Halep need a little less help staying patient and positive in the future, now that she has a Premier Mandatory title under her belt? It’s possible. For now, she has begun to put the bitter memory of the Australian Open behind her. She was asked again today about her quarterfinal defeat there to Ekaterina Makarova, in which she raised the white flag in the second set.

“I said many times I was very disappointed after that match,” Halep said. “I said I will fight till the end always, and that was the last match where I didn’t fight...Here I did a great job, I think.”

Perhaps Halep’s flight in Melbourne will keep her fighting for the rest of 2015.

Novak Djokovic knew exactly what Jankovic, his fellow Serb, was feeling today. Like JJ, Djokovic had run away with the first set against Federer; it was the first time in six matches that he had won the opening set against his rival, and he did it crisply and convincingly from both sides of the net. Djokovic won 100 percent of his first-serve points, and 71 percent of points on Federer’s second serve. He broke at 3-2 in the first with a fabulously timed crosscourt backhand pass at full stretch.

By the time Djokovic was up 4-3, 30-15, in the second set, it appeared as if match and his fourth title at Indian Wells were all but his. He won that point with a down-the-line backhand winner, which had come a few seconds after an inside-out forehand winner. Djokovic seemed to be gaining in confidence; little did anyone know that he was about to lose all of it.

It began with a great piece of scrambling Federer defense, which turned into a bullet forehand winner, for 30-30. The crowd, which had been waiting for an hour for any reason to erupt on Federer’s behalf, duly went berserk. The applause lingered in the air; by the time it had dissipated, the momentum had swung completely in Federer's direction. Djokovic double faulted to go down break point, and the applause came back. When he put a forehand into the net on the next point, the crowd erupted again. At the start of the next game, Djokovic responded with a sarcastic thumb’s up to the audience. I have to say, I understood the sentiment. I’ve seen plenty of pro-Federer crowds, but this was the most anti-Federer’s-opponent audience I’ve ever heard.

Yet 20 minutes later, Djokovic still had the match, literally, in hand. He stood to serve at 5-4 in the second-set tiebreaker; two points and the title was his. Instead, Djokovic, world No. 1, missed four straight serves to hand Federer a set point. When he lost that point as well, Djokovic sat down on the sideline and picked up something to drink. His hand was shaking so badly that he could barely get the bottle to his mouth.

Yet Djokovic still won. He stopped Federer’s momentum in its tracks by breaking him in the second game of the third set. After that, he visibly relaxed and went back to controlling play with his serves, returns, ground strokes, and legs. This time it was Federer’s turn to double-fault at a key moment—2-3, break point—and lose command of his shots. By the time Djokovic coolly held for a 6-3, 6-7 (5) 6-2 win, it was hard to remember that his second-set implosion had ever happened.

Afterward, Djokovic tried to keep it that way by focusing on the big picture.

“I thought overall it was a great match from my side,” he said. “Very solid, great intensity, great commitment to hit every ball.”

Asked exactly how he had put the second set behind him, Djokovic chalked it up to having been in the same situation, against the same opponent, so many times in the past.

“The experience of playing many matches in the big stage and of this importance definitely helps in these particular moments to know what to play,” he said. “The right shot, and stay calm and committed to the next ball. We are all humans. We all fall under pressure sometimes. Roger as well.”

Roger as well. From the start, Federer didn’t have the same conviction or consistency that he had in his last two matches; at 33, it’s obviously tougher to peak, and then peak again the next day, than it is when you’re 23. He didn’t win a point on Djokovic’s first serve in the first set, and he finished the match with a hail of wild errors. Only in the last half of the second set, with his back to the wall, the crowd willing him on, and his opponent doing what he could to help, did Federer come to life.

As he was last year after his loss to Djokovic at Wimbledon, Federer was most disappointed, and perplexed, by his return game.

“I felt like I wasn’t returning well enough,” Federer said, “especially first serve. I know that’s tough, but he was getting way too many free points...It’s like, 'Where is that return on the first serve'?

"From my side it was a bit more up and down, and he was just more solid. That’s why he totally deserved to win today.”

Djokovic walked away with his 50th ATP title, putting him one ahead of his coach, Boris Becker—“[Dinner] is on him this time,” the Djoker joked. It’s also his 21st Masters title, and it marks the third time that he’s followed an Australian Open win with one at Indian Wells. Djokovic has cemented his place at No. 1, yet in a sense he and Federer have each held serve once this season. Federer won on the faster hard courts in Dubai; Djokovic won on the slower ones in Indian Wells.

Perhaps most impressive of all, though, was the humanity that Djokovic showed in tightening up, and the ability to leave that moment of humanity behind right away, and return to his world-beating self. If it weren’t for his ranking and his titles, the guy would be just like the rest of us.