MELBOURNE—Seagulls, locusts, Aussie fanatics, Serbian fanatics: There was a little bit of everything in Rod Laver Arena tonight, including enough humidity that, by the time Novak Djokovic and Lleyton Hewitt walked onto the court, the air in this mostly indoor stadium smelled a little like a locker room. It got heated in there, and not just on the court. For once, the Aussie chanters had some competition. At important moments, their jingles in support of their man Rusty were drowned out by a booming chorus from the upper deck: “No-lay!” The Fanatics didn’t seem to like being upstaged.
One evening after Roger Federer showed a packed house what makes him such a special performer, Djokovic spent the first two and a half sets doing the same thing tonight. The contrasts were telling. Where Federer impresses with feel and shot-making, Djokovic does it with his springy mobility. He’s appears to be leaner than he has been since early last year, and maybe even lighter on his feet. Djokovic seemed to leap across the court from one forehand to the next. He used that shot, which was kicking up and forward after it bounced, to dictate thoroughly. "He makes it look so easy," the woman sitting next to me said to her friend. And Djokovic does, in a compact and streamlined way. Just as impressive as his forehand was his open-stance, no back-swing backhand, which he bent down and swept through time and again for winners up the line.
But there was too much in the air for this one to go smoothly the whole way. Hewitt couldn’t do anything, the fans couldn’t help, even the bugs didn’t bother Djokovic. It was up to the birds, and they did their part in the third set, swirling down en masse from their usual perch on Laver’s retractable roof and taking a spin inside the stadium. Hewitt took heart and, with his back to the wall, began to make inroads in rallies and coax some errors from a suddenly shaky Djokovic. Hewitt was as resilient and resourceful as he has been this whole tournament. By the end of the third set, he had shifted from his usual safe game and started to let his forehand rip. He saved a break point at 3-4 with a hard forehand, and he survived to hold after a long game at 5-4 for the set.
We already knew Hewitt wouldn’t give up, and that he would probably find a way to get his teeth into this one. The news from this match is that there is still a nervous side to Novak Djokovic. The man who was so cool in his finals with Rafael Nadal last year can be rattled, on the right night, with the right crowd, against the right cussed opponent. From the middle of the third set until he broke to go up 4-2 in the fourth, we saw a different Djokovic from the one we’ve seen in virtually any match of import, outside of his semifinals against Federer at the French and U.S. Opens, in the last year. He said afterward that he “slowed down,” and that Hewitt made him “play one more ball,” which led to errors. It also led to a dip in confidence that we didn’t expect. His purposeful saunter between points was replaced for a few games by head-down concern.
Djokovic found his way out while serving at 1-1, down break point, in the third game of the fourth. Losing a set could be shrugged off as inevitable at some point during a Grand Slam, but losing a set and going down a break? That was real. The two players rallied and moved each other around, until Djokovic finally finished with a bomb forehand crosscourt. Hewitt, knowing the importance of the moment, stretched his body to the breaking point but couldn’t bring the ball back in the court. The danger had passed. Djokovic hit two aces to hold.
Two games later he broke and started to run away with it. The springiness was back, the elasticity was back, the winners were back. Through the early stages of the fourth, Djokovic began to hit out with abandon. At first it appeared that he was just pulling the plug and seeing what happened, and in a way he was. But what look like bailout shots for most people are part of the normal Djokovic arsenal. Down set point in the third, he ran around and drilled a forehand return down the line that was the spitting image of the famous crosscourt return he hit against Federer at Flushing last year. Like that seeming Hail Mary, this one went in. No shot is low-percentage if you can make it when you need it.
What does Djokovic’s brief lapse mean? I think it may end up benefiting him. Now he’s experienced real live nerves during a match of consequence for the first time since last fall’s U.S. Open and Davis Cup. More important, he survived them, which should help when they come again, which they will.
As for local hero Lleyton Hewitt, the little battler ends his record 16th straight Australian Open with a gritty effort, a respectful handshake with his opponent, and a wave to the crowd that was appreciative but not overdone or self-indulgent. In other words, how an Aussie sportsman should walk off.