Missing Nole: IW CC, Day 11

By TW Contributing Editor Rosangel Valenti

Hi everyone. Pete is taking a break from Crisis Center duty this weekend, so you're hearing from me today and will again tomorrow. As always when in Crisis Center mode, we ask that the day's chat stays focused on tennis until the matches are over. It's particularly important at this time, because as you all know, the latest version of TypePad has come along with a few teething problems, and the faster our posts fill up, the sooner we'll be in need of extension Crisis Center posts. SixApart are well aware of your feedback on the current TypePad release (thanks to all of you who took the time to be specific in your comments about it yesterday). Please bear with us for the moment - the SixApart team is working with us to improve your commenting experience, and we'll do our best to ease that for now by putting up whatever extensions to the daily Crisis Centers are needed.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but last night while watching the quarterfinal between Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic it struck me again with some force - I really miss the old Nole. Where is that chest-beating, cockily delusional young man who performed imitations of his fellow players as a crowd-pleaser on court at the US Open back in 2007, and who began his 2008 season with a flourish, ripping off his shirt and gazing skywards upon bagging his Australian Open title, and making then-defending champion Rafael Nadal look rather ordinary in their semifinal at Indian Wells, a title he also went on to take in the final? Nole looked to be on top of the world then, probably on his way to becoming the next world number two, with number one in his sights, as he was content to keep reminding us. Oh, there were those who complained about his family - even their corny-but-delicious little habit of wearing matching T-shirts spelling out "N-O-L-E" took a beating in some quarters - and the young man also found himself acknowledging, right after his Slam triumph, that the crowd had in the main been with his opponent that day. In spite of it all, he still looked as though he was having the time of his life, and feeling comfortable in filling his shoes.

Fast-forward to Indian Wells in 2009, and neither of his two big titles has been defended, with Andy Roddick being his conqueror on both occasions - that same Andy Roddick who was the losing quarterfinalist at his hands at the US Open. It was a victory that Djokovic followed by some extraordinary remarks to the New York crowd - hardly an impartial jury - in intended rebuttal or defiance of something Roddick had said about his medical timeouts during matches. How ironic that he retired against Roddick in their next Grand Slam quarterfinal, in extreme weather conditions during the Australian Open. He took some criticism for that retirement, which must have hurt - yet one thing we do know, even though it's not something he likes to discuss, is that he's had ongoing difficulties relating to his breathing, which may have been a factor that day. If it's a physical problem that he mostly manages to keep under control in order to play top-level tennis, then he may even deserve some admiration on that front in general. Whatever the truth of the particular situation in Melbourne, it didn't look to be the problem last night in Indian Wells, as he barely seemed able to do anything right against Roddick's newly-confident game.

How different everything looks now for him. To this observer, it also seems that his conception of himself in relation to the world has changed, and not necessarily in a joyful way. He always seemed to me to be an extroverted, high-spirited fun-loving type, not exactly gifted with the balm of tact, nor inclined to dissemble much about his thoughts. When he was on court, I always used to get the sense that he was enjoying himself  and his new-found powers as his stature in the game grew.He also didn't appear to mind occasional controversies - though some later evidence suggests that some of the backlash may have hurt him more than it appeared to at the time. He's a more sober character now.

With only a year having passed since he was at his zenith, it's tempting to ask what has happened to the young man -  after all, he's still only 21. Is there even a single culprit? We know he hasn't had an easy ride from the press, or from many tennis fans, and then there are his rivals. Can we point to Rafael Nadal, who last year gritted his way through a sensational semifinal match under the roof in Hamburg, to retain his threatened number two ranking against Djokovic, the challenger? I don't know how it felt to be Djokovic that day, but I was there, and I do know how oppressive the stadium felt with the roof closed, the skies outside low and grey, and the atmosphere heavy - the whole occasion felt truly portentous. Since that day Djokovic has defeated Nadal once, in Cincinnati, but the occasion was heavily overshadowed by Nadal having claimed the number one ranking on the previous day. On the other four occasions when the two have played since that day in Hamburg, Nadal has emerged the victor, and none of them can have brought the Serb much joy - who can forget the way their semifinal at the Beijing Olympics ended, with a tense miss by Djokovic, followed by tears as he was exiting the court?

Can we point to Roger Federer? The two have only met twice since their meeting at the 2008 Australian Open, on which occasion we know that Federer was dealing with the after-effects of mono and had put in a momentous effort simply to reach that stage, and on both occasions Federer has emerged as the convincing victor, with Djokovic retiring during the second set in Monte Carlo, and losing their US Open semifinal in four sets.

Finally, can we point to Andy Murray? Djokovic was able to dismantle him on clay in Monte Carlo last year, when expectations of the Scot weren't at their highest, but on hardcourts Murray (who had never previously beaten him) twice defeated Djokovic in straight sets in Masters Series events. In the second of those encounters, Cincinnati, the two contested the final, and Murray simply looked the fitter of the two that day. With Djokovic having failed to defend his Indian Wells title, and with Murray having relatively few points to defend during the upcoming clay season, is Murray the heir-apparent to the number three ranking? Of the top four, it would be pretty difficult to argue that anyone other than Murray or Nadal has improved most since early last year - take your pick. Next week's event in Miami could be important for both Murray and Djokovic rankings-wise - each lost his first match there last year, so is defending minimal points.

Djokovic claimed the Rome Nasters Series title and was the winner at the Tennis Masters Cup last year - fine achievements that didn't involve defeating his three key rivals. Indeed, in Shanghai Djokovic sustained the third of a string of four defeats against the current world number 11, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, his opponent in the Australian Open final.

I have always loved the game's characters - or loved to hate them, as the saying goes - and am really noticing the absence of the 20-year-old Nole. I don't know whether it's his new racquet, his war wounds, the weight of unfulfilled hopes, other responsibilities outside of playing tennis such as his family's new tournament in Serbia, a desire to be appreciated more by fans, or even something offcourt relating to his family or coaching relationships. I don't even particularly love his style of play, but I do miss him, the challenge that he earlier seemed to embody, and what he seemed to promise for the future. I also miss a lot of the the swagger and the controversy. The key question I'd want to ask him right now is - what changes can he make to get back on track, and does he intend to make such changes? There's no doubting his talent, but something more is needed. At the top of the men's game some contenders are improving faster than he is - and even the number one player is raising his level simply to try to guard his position at the pinnacle, for now.