Maybe you had to be there. When I talked to people later who had watched the U.S. Open men's final on TV, they sounded disappointed. “It was never in doubt”; “Djokovic never had a chance”; “The rain ruined it”: ‘I couldn’t find it on any channel.”
It didn’t feel any of those ways inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. Novak Djokovic was indeed fighting an uphill battle all the way, but that only made him very loose, and made his opponent, Rafael Nadal, who was facing what would almost certainly be the best chance he would ever have to complete a career Grand Slam, very tight. Tennis players talk about being lonely in front of all those people, but it can’t get any lonelier than trying to finish a match you simply have to win in front of thousands of people who will be stunned if you don't. Nadal was on my side of the court when he got to 5-1. You could see change in him that game; he became visibly nervous, and stayed that way until it was over.
But what made this a memorable match for me—No. 4 for the year—was the shot-making exhibition these two put on. With the various rain delays, as well as the Monday start, the tension that usually accompanies a U.S. Open had dissipated by the third set. There was a sort of wild and stormy feel inside the stadium as these guys threw haymakers back and forth at each other.
Above are one person’s selection of the 12 best points—how closely do you have to watch a match to put something like that together? Seeing them again makes me think you didn’t really have to be there at all. They're just as good on TV.
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The first point ends with a nice Djokovic drop shot. You know it’s especially nice, since even Nadal can’t get close to it. Djokovic has a very good backhand drop, but he uses it as a bail-out shot too often, from too far back in the court. Here he gets the shot selection right, hitting it from inside the baseline when he already has the advantage in the point.
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I know these are highlights, but did Djokovic play better in this match than he did against Federer? You can see he’s tired, but that also frees him to go for shots he normally wouldn’t attempt. He makes a lot of them. Deep down, though, he doesn't believe it's going to work out in the end, and that's what dooms him.
In his matches with Nadal, Djokovic has the opposite problem that he does when he plays Federer. Where he has to fight off the early Federer attack, Djokovic typically starts strong against Nadal. He has a chance to control points and hit his shots, and his down the line backhand is a real weapon when Nadal’s crosscourt forehands land short. The catch: He has to keep hitting that down the line backhand, along with everything else, perfectly, game after game, set after set. On most occasions, he can’t.
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Nadal is gaining on Bjorn Borg as the greatest clay-courter ever, but he may already be ahead of him in the passing shot department. What Nadal does like no one else is shorten his backswing so that he does little more than snap through the shot. He can still get pace doing this, but his specialities are accuracy and redirecting the ball with almost no preparation. He takes one Djokovic volley and snaps it down the line with a forehand; he takes another and blocks it crosscourt at a sharp angle with his backhand. No one can match him as a passing-shot improviser.
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Does the Sky Sports play-by-play guy seriously mean to say that he thinks that two of these points are the best ever played? I mean, they’re good, but . . .
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Two of these 12 best points came in the final game, when, like I said, Nadal was more visibly nervous than he had been all day. Nevertheless, he wins them. I’ve noted before that Federer is a master at showing nerves for a second and then playing through them. Nadal, who rarely blows a big match, does it too. Grace under pressure, the one true mark of a champion.
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Djokovic is caught smiling after a few of these points, even when he’s lost them. On one other, he uses his racquet to clap for his opponent. The previous year, he had a similar attitude in his semifinal with Federer. This is obviously not ideal from a competitive standpoint—notice that he didn’t do any of that stuff in the Davis Cup final. But maybe Djokovic is just being realistic when he plays Nadal and Federer. Maybe we can forgive him for doing what we do when we watch them play, for being one more fan.