Novak Djokovic kept pressing his hands down in front of him—“calm down” was the message he wanted to send himself. In the future, he might consider doing it between every point, because on Saturday he received that message just long enough to beat David Ferrer in Dubai for his first title of 2009.
Never mind, for the moment, that he didn’t face Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, or Andy Murray along the way, or that he was pushed deep into a third set in the second round by the highly mortal Jan Hernych. For one, Djokovic proved to himself that he could win with his new racquet. This may sound silly, but it’s something that could have gotten into his easily frustrated head and become a convenient thing to blame when things weren’t going his way. (I suppose it still could.) More important, the Serb showed that he remains a cut above everyone outside of the very top tier when it comes to the essentials of today’s game.
In the quarterfinals, Djokovic held off a potent but sloppy Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-4 in a match that was, as they say, closer than the scores indicated (sometimes the cliché is the only way to put it). Cilic is a certifiable young gun, a 20-year-old who many think could be the next Djokovic, only with a 6-foot-6 serve. The two had met at the U.S. Open last year and Cilic had matched him shot for shot from the ground. This time the differences were clearer. Djokovic was smoother, crisper, quicker, and hit the ball within a few feet of the baseline much more consistently than Cilic. All of this became especially clear when the Serb needed a point. Cilic kept pushing him to the brink with big shots that set up break points, but it was Djokovic who owned a wider variety of reliable weapons that he could use when the nerves set in. It was clear: Cilic still has a ways to go.
Djokovic's superiority was even more obvious against Ferrer in the final, to the point where the outcome of the match rested solely on his strings. Ferrer muscled the ball back into the middle of the court and chased everything down, but it was Djokovic who had the opportunity and the burden to do all the creating. A couple things stuck out immediately about how he handled that fact.
Like Andy Roddick in Memphis, Djokovic—either consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know—had added an upward flick to his forehand and was pulling off the ball on important points. I’d never seen him follow through on the same side of his head with that shot, but in tight moments that’s what he was doing. It looked more anxious than pretty, but the extra safety worked well enough to earn him a couple breaks of serve. The problem was, Djokovic grew even more tentative when he tried to consolidate those breaks. Serving at 4-2, 30-30 in the first set, he netted two routine backhands. Serving at 4-2, 15-0 in the second set, he rushed through three backhands, made three errors, and was broken. Each time he threw his hands up and looked despairingly toward his box.
But just when he seems ready to snap, Djokovic comes back with something special, something no one else can do. At 2-0, 30-30 in the second set, he set up a winning point with a wicked slice second serve out wide—from anyone else, this would be a risky shot, but it’s part of his arsenal. Early in the match, he tracked down good drop shots from Ferrer with ease. I’d never noticed how well Djokovic moves forward and anticipates. He’s at the net with ease. What’s unfortunate is that, playing with a Western forehand and two-handed backhand has hurt Djokovic’s volleys, as it has countless other modern players—the Continental grips needed at the net just don't feel natural (take it from a two-handed backhander who only learned to use the proper backhand volley grip after playing squash for five years). Djokovic is worse at volleying than he should be, and his excellent transition skills and acceleration largely go to waste. Of course, the trade-off is that he can hit balls past his opponents from behind the baseline. Few do it with such ease, and over the highest parts of the net, as he does.
At 5-5 in the first set, after blowing a 5-3 lead, Djokovic righted himself with a strong, quietly determined hold. Then at 6-5, 0-15, he played his best point of the match, a masterpiece of patient aggression from the baseline. Rather than pulling the trigger early, which he often does when everything is on the line—it’s another, less obvious form of choking—he started by keeping the ball down the middle, then slowly opened the point up and sent a series of heavy forehand bombs deeper and deeper before ending it with a winner. He pounded his chest and ran out the set, but not before showing that edge of frustration and impatience that always lurks below his surface. During set point, Ferrer hit a ball that landed on the baseline. Someone in Djokovic’s crew called “out!” The point continued until the Serb won it. Instead of celebrating a first-set win, he angrily shushed his fans and slammed his racquet down when he got to the sideline.
This isn’t something you see Federer or Nadal do. Federer might mope, Nadal might get nervous, but neither has to keep a self-sabotaging angry side in check the way Djokovic does. Maybe this has something to do with their styles of play. While Federer can blow open a point with one shot and then cruise, and Nadal can sit back and grind without taking too many chances if he needs to, Djokovic must ride a precarious balance of control and aggression. He’s got more game than almost all of his opponents, but to show it off he needs time to develop a point. If he goes for a lot too early or stays back and rallies for too long, he gives up his shot-making advantage and becomes just another player—his game is not as unique to begin with as any of the other members of the Top 4.
Controlled aggression is the Holy Grail of the sport because it’s such a tough thing to keep up for long periods. I can understand why Djokovic gets frustrated when he doesn’t do it. On Saturday, watching him bounce the ball many, many times before he served, I started to think that he was trying in vain to find just the right mental balance, to get his head in just the right spot for the next point, before he tossed the ball in the air and took a swing. No wonder the number of bounces goes way up late in a set. It might be annoying, it might illegal, it might not even be very smart—time to think is usually not a tennis player's friend—but I can understand Djokovic's effort. Whether he's pressing his hands down in front of him to calm himself or bouncing the ball until no one can take it anymore, a good frame—of mind, that is—is the key to his game. He's right to try so hard to find it.