Can you say “pressure?”
Of one thing I’m fairly certain: Djokovic will not want to have another challenge like the one he faced in 2012, and he won’t have to worry about it, barring another three-Slam, 70-6 year.
The fall-off in Djokovic’s results from that peak was minimal this season, at least numerically. He actually finished the year with more wins (75-12), and just two of those losses were to men ranked outside the Top 10 (John Isner was No. 11 when he knocked over Djokovic at Indian Wells, and No. 23 Sam Querrey surprised him in at the Paris Masters 1000). So let’s look at some details of Nole the Defender’s year.
Djokovic began the year with a win over Nadal in a brutal epic of an Australian Open final. It seemed that, as the immortal Yogi Berra once said, it was “Déjà vu all over again.” But this was not to be another 2011—that became manifest when Djokovic won just one tournament over the course of the next six months (he beat Murray in the final of the Miami Masters). It’s hard to imagine that at some point, he wasn’t asking himself: “Why do I need to go through all this again after what I did last year?”
A furious Nadal avenged himself after losing seven straight matches to Djokovic with three big wins starting in the spring, culminating with a Grand Slam showdown at Roland Garros—the only title still standing between Djokovic and a career Grand Slam. After Nadal evened their Grand Slam head-to-head record for the year at 1-1, it was evident that Djokovic was struggling—at least against his fellow Grand Slam champions. His record against them in 2012 fell to 2-4 at Roland Garros, and 2-5 a few weeks later at Wimbledon, where he lost to Federer. It then became 2-6 at the London Olympics, when he lost to Murray, and 2-7 a few days later when he lost the bronze-medal match to del Potro.
It was at that time that Federer took back the No. 1 ranking, but Djokovic could take comfort in this: His consistency was outstanding—he lost before the semis on just two occasions—even if he was just losing too many of those semis and finals to his main rivals (Djokovic played a Grand Slam champion in 12 of his 17 tournaments on the year). But the question loomed: With Federer at No. 1 and Murray an Olympic if not yet a Grand Slam champion, would Djokovic fall off the pace set by his rivals?
Djokovic regained some ground when he won the Masters 1000 title in Canada, but that was followed by disappointing losses to Federer (in Cincinnati) and Murray (at the U.S. Open). It became clear that Djokovic needed a big autumn to rectify his situation, and he produced it. He won two titles (Beijing and Shanghai) immediately after the final Grand Slam. He then suffered his worst loss of the year in Paris, when Querrey surprised him in the second round.
But he more than made up for that with a strong finish in London, where there was so much incentive for Murray, and where a well-rested Federer would labor under the conditions he liked best. But Djokovic beat both of them, with a revenge win over del Potro sandwiched in between. In nearly every London match, Djokovic overcame a sluggish start to pound out a win on the anvil of pride and desire.
The 800-pound gorilla in the room in the second half of the year was Nadal, or his absence from the tour. But any discussion of what that might have meant is a subject best left for another time. When it comes to Djokovic, his year wasn’t exactly pretty (he finished 7-8 against Big Four opponents in semis and finals), but he had enough game—and grit—to fend off his rivals in the major showdown of the year, and he thereby earned the right to be called the Player of the Year.
