Novak Djokovic will finish 2012 ranked No. 1 by virtue of a TKO win over Roger Federer. I call it a technical knock-out less from a poverty of imagination than because the only way this differs from the commonly known boxing finish is that this fight was ended not by a neutral referee, but by one of the combatants.
The official ranking will not reflect the ironclad truth until Nov. 5, when Federer’s ranking points from last year at this time drop off. This scenario was ensured when, shortly after losing a two-hour and 44-minute final on his home turf of Basel to Juan Martin del Potro, Federer declared that he’s skipping the Paris Masters (where he’s defending champ) in order to address some “niggling stuff” before the start of the ATP World Tour Finals in London.
Before the Basel tournament, hope raged throughout the tennis world that Federer and Djokovic would be duking it out for the No. 1 ranking in the very last (and fifth-most significant) event of the year.
Balloon, meet pin.
When Federer pulled out of Paris, the No. 1 ranking that Djokovic has been chasing for months dropped into his lap like a piece of ripe fruit. It’s an even less dramatic turnabout than that, though. If you looked at the ranking points race from January 1 to the present—instead of the 52-week “rolling” ranking (where Federer had been No. 1 since about the middle of the year)—it was easy to see that Federer’s chances of finishing the year at No. 1 were remote. But thanks to the rankings regimen, the 17-time Grand Slam champ was able to craft a sensational story when he took over the top spot from Djokovic on July 9, after a resonant win over his Serbian rival at Wimbledon. But the larger and more germane reality, reflected in the race table, is that Djokovic has been in the lead since the metaphorical Day 1 of 2012.
That’s because Djokovic asserted dominion over his rivals way back at the Australian Open. It’s easy to forget what a major accomplishment that was. Djokovic had absolutely gorged on success in 2011; he assumed the No. 1 ranking for the first time in his career that April, and held onto it through the course of one of the greatest 12-month performances in tennis history.
That win in Melbourne also gave Djokovic significant breathing room in his tri-valry with Federer and Rafael Nadal. Yet it may have taken a little bit off the edge of his game and motivation, and justified taking his foot off the accelerator.
After embarking on the year with that epic win over Nadal, Djokovic experienced just two losses until the start of the clay-court season—one to Andy Murray in semis of Dubai (Djokovic avenged that loss with a win over Murray in the final of Miami), the other to John Isner in the semis at Indian Wells. Djokovic was 24-2 on the year heading into the Monte Carlo final, against you know who.
Djokovic lost his beloved grandfather that week, and won just four games from Nadal in the title clash, giving the Spaniard a beachhead from which to reclaim his clay-court ascendancy. Djokovic hated the experimental blue clay of Madrid, and conveniently lost in the quarterfinals to his Serbian wingman, Janko Tipsarevic. The only other player to beat Djokovic during the clay swing was the King of Clay. Nadal continued to take his revenge for Djokovic's 2011 season and the Australian Open final by defeating Djokovic in finals at Rome and Roland Garros.
By end of the ragged, artless French Open final, cries of “What’s wrong with Djokovic?” were wafting skyward. They carried over at Wimbledon, where Federer surprised Djokovic inside a covered Centre Court, on which the Serb looked genuinely at sea on grass.
But curiously, few pundits made much of the way Djokovic had previously been manhandling Federer, the man who was clearly the second-best player on clay (behind Nadal) for the better part of a decade. In fact, Djokovic took down Federer in back-to-back semis, without the loss of a set, before Nadal punished him in those finals at the Italian and French Opens.
In the long run, the low point for Djokovic in this misshapen and surprise-filled year was the Olympic Games. An unabashed patriot, Djokovic had declared two main ambitions for 2012—to win the French Open, and the Olympics. Not only did Djokovic lose to Murray in the semis of the Olympics, he didn’t even make the medal podium, losing the bronze-medal match to Juan Martin del Potro.
Coming so close on the heels of that loss to Federer during the actual Wimbledon tournament, Djokovic’s loss at the Olympic Games had to be devastating—not least because a player gets two, maybe three, real chances to contend for an Olympic singles medal during what might be called the prime of his career. Djokovic is young enough to contend in four years’ time in Rio, but it’s likely that this year was—by far—his best shot at winning.
But you have to admire the way Djokovic reacted to that disappointing month spent in England. He made the final at the next two Masters events, in Canada (which he won), and Cincinnati (where he lost to Federer). But there was but one more curveball thrown at him before the end of the Grand Slam season. And that was Murray, or rather the inevitable transformation of the Scot into a Grand Slam champion. That event occurred in the U.S. Open final, where Djokovic was Murray’s victim in a brutal and bitterly fought five-setter.
Just reading about Djokovic’s ups and downs and the events that shaped his year, you might conclude that it was a season of tremendous struggle and frustration. Yet even at July 16 in the race standings, after Wimbledon, Djokovic was a mere 245 points behind Federer. Within a month, Djokovic had retaken the lead—for good.
Clearly, Novak Djokovic was a better player than all those “Federer reclaims No. 1” headlines suggested.
This is all instructive as a way to understand and appreciate the concept of the ATP race as well as the ATP rankings. The race statistics seem more aligned with the on-the-ground realities through most of this year.
Claiming the No. 1 ranking by TKO rather than by an in-match knockout of the champ—ironically, the way Federer did it at Wimbledon—isn’t very sexy. And it hardly does justice to the day-in, day-out quality of Djokovic’s 2012 season. He reached three Grand Slam finals, leads the tour in wins (70-11), and his winning percentage (.844) trails Federer and Nadal (respectively) by minute degrees. Djokovic has also been in six Masters 1000 finals (3-3), and won five tournaments overall.
At any point this year, the ATP race—shorthand for the drive to qualify for the World Tour Finals—statistics has been the most valuable for putting Djokovic’s year into an objective perspective. And what they tell us is that Djokovic has not been nearly as beleaguered or off-form as some of the stories churned out over the course of the year asserted. I plead guilty myself, but would do it the same way all over again because—well, isn’t it just more fun this way? And doesn’t the truth always come out in the end?
You know what they say: Hindsight is 20-20. And in a few days, the new rankings will punctuate Djokovic’s superiority in this surprise-filled ATP year with a fitting endorsement.