By TW Contributing Editor Andrew Burton
Pete Bodo, our esteemed proprietor, has a maxim that things change very fast in tennis. You think Federer's dominance will last for years? Watch out, Rafael Nadal will break out from his clay court beach head and over run the grass and hard court battlefields.
And you think Novak Djokovic is the next challenger to the big two? Watch out Novak - getting to the top is hard, but staying there may well turn out to be harder.
In every press conference he's given this week, Djokovic has stressed that tennis is a mental game. Right now, if you put Djokovic and Jelena Jankovic side by side and asked the player with the greater confidence in their own game to step forward, you could probably watch the two of them walk backwards until their backs hit the wall.
Last year at Indian Wells, Djokovic played with a perceptible swagger - and he backed it up. He could be pushed, but he'd push back harder, and he'd beat his chest in triumph just for taking the first set off Stan Wawrinka. Then he brushed aside Rafael Nadal in the SF and met Mardy Fish in the final. Fish fought back to take the second set; Djokovic earned an early break in the third set but then faced 0-40 on his own serve. Three thunderous serves brought him back to deuce, the game followed, and Djokovic served his way through the set to the title with exultant chants of "Ser-bi-yah! Ser-bi-yah!" raining from the high bleachers around the stadium.
Fast forward six months, and Djokovic booked his ticket to a semi final with Roger Federer at the US Open, the second hard court Major of the year. Then, a major self-inflicted wound, the angry USA Network interview with Michael Barkan about Roddick's "SARS" comments before the match. When Djokovic walked out in front of the New York crowd on Saturday morning to play Federer, he looked to me as if he was wearing a "Kick Me" note taped to his back. The match was competitive until late in the third set, but when Federer broke and served out the set Djokovic was done.
The second self-inflicted wound didn't come from a heat of the moment remark - it was carefully planned and executed. Djokovic switched in the off season to a custom designed Head racquet, and seemed to struggle to find his range with the new stick. In Australia, Djokovic started his quarter final with Roddick brightly, but tired openly in the Melbourne heat and retired in set 3.
A win in Dubai possibly signalled that Djokovic might be back on the upswing, and he came into today's match not having dropped a set. He hadn't looked the all-conquering hero in his first three matches, but neither had Murray, Federer or Nadal - so Djokovic might have legitimately represented himself as a contender, as well as being the defending champion.
For the record, Djokovic lost today 6-3 6-2, but as the old saying goes, it wasn't that close. Taking only 39% of the points in a match falls into the category of a thumping. Sometimes you get thumped because your opponent was too good that day. This wasn't one of those days, though.
As he walked into the press conference, you could see that Djokovic had taken the invisible "Kick Me" sign off his back, then put it on his front covering a vulnerable part of his anatomy. And you could see that he'd been kicking away ferociously for a while:
I asked him if he'd tried to make adjustments during the match:
And so it went. Novak had clearly been thumbing through the "Marat Safin Guide To Answering Press Questions"
Roddick, to his credit, didn't lay claim to brilliance after the match, noting wryly that this hadn't been one of Novak's best days.
If you use a device like the one in Newsweek, the "Conventional Wisdom Watch," and apply it to the ATP Big 4, you'd likely have red "up" arrows against the No 1 and No 4 players, a sideways arrow against the No 2, and a red "down arrow against the No 3 player.
Roger Federer hasn't impressed himself so far this week, commenting on his own rust. But any time Federer seems to feel he's drifting towards negative territory, he quickly pulls himself back with a positive comment. Federer was drubbed by Fish last year even more comprehensively than Djokovic was this afternoon by Roddick, but his press conference didn't betray self doubt, just wry bemusement:
