Luca Nardi defeats Novak Djokovic: Teachable moments from a stunning upset

I'm 20 years old. . . I watch his matches, ten years, for sure. The only one advantage that I had, it was that he didn't see me never play. Luca Nardi

Let’s not read too much into the 123rd-ranked lucky loser’s upset of the all-time men’s Grand Slam singles champion. Novak Djokovic found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time in the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on a windy, cool Monday evening. It happens.

Still, this astonishing result points to some teachable moments about the game, starting with the advantage Nardi mentioned: the ability to have closely watched so many of Djokovic’s matches in our media-rich era. By now, pretty much everyone interested in tennis can claim to know Djokovic and understand his game to a measure that was unthinkable even a few decades ago.

For Nardi, familiarity did not breed contempt, as the old saying goes, but it must have served as a demystifying agent.

Here’s another thing, a detail so obvious and deeply ingrained in our understanding of the game that it’s easily overlooked. There are no bad players anymore—and certainly not among those, like Nardi, hovering around the Top 100. Upsets are no longer the remarkable anomalies that once made you go “Huh?” They seem more like random occurrences kicked out by some algorithm designed to keep tennis more interesting.

It’s telling that, at least for now, Casper Ruud feels like old news. He’s just 25, and by 23 he was already a two-time Grand Slam finalist with a peak ranking of No. 2. But he’s been lost in the rapid-fire shuffle that has produced talking points about Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Holger Rune, Ben Shelton and others.

Where did these guys come from?

The answer to that question is, “Everywhere.” Tennis has more tributaries than the Columbia river, with talent pouring into the main tours from an unprecedented host of sources. This is true on both men’s and women’s tours. The really surprising thing about this is that the epidemic-grade eruption of talent has been largely spontaneous, yet anything but random.

Here’s another thing, a detail so obvious and deeply ingrained in our understanding of the game that it’s easily overlooked. There are no bad players anymore.

But it isn’t as if a few hundred talented players from all over the world are repeatedly thrown together in a pile and champions are then picked out. A champion from any nation tends to trigger a wave—sometimes a tidal wave—of success. Italy currently has six players in the Top 100, led by No. 3 Sinner, and some very good ones—Lorenzo Musetti, the oft-injured Matteo Berretini, the veteran Fabio Fognini, and Nardi—just ouside that cohort. These are boom times in the Boot.

The strange part about all this is that whenever a nation has launched a successful invasion of the pro tour, pundits have tried to sniff out the secret sauce. But we’ve learned that the magic ingredient in creating champions is. . . champions. High concept, science-driven, resource-rich programs, including and maybe especially those sponsored by the state, don’t get the job done—at least not nearly as reliably and swiftly as domestic role models.

So it was that Bjorn Borg begat Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg and a handful of other successful Swedes, just as Boris Becker (and Steffi Graf) begat Michael Stich, Tommy Haas, Nicholas Keifer and Rainer Schuttler, all visitors to the Top 10. Yannick Noah’s landmark victory at Roland Garros opened the door for Guy Forget and Henri LeConte, while in the U.S., Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert set the table for Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Michael Chang et al. It isn’t rocket science, folks.

It would be remiss to leave out the impact that Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone, a pair of WTA Grand Slam champions, have had on Italy’s current fortunes. But that’s a conversation for another day.

Nardi, a native of Pesaro who says that his favorite food is sushi (you can almost hear those Italian mamas gnashing their teeth) became the umpteenth player from a lucky nation to address the “Why here, why now?” question. He said, after his big win:

“I don't know if there is some secrets. . . like all Italian players I look up to Jannik [Sinner] and to what he's doing. I had the chance to practice with him many times. I always try to learn from him, because he's a very nice guy, hard worker, and it's very nice what he's doing for our country, for tennis in Italy. I hope that I can join him. Not with his results but, you know, we never know.”