There were a number of reasons not to be surprised by Novak Djokovic’s opening-round loss to Sam Querrey today. One, Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, has been in the hospital with a respitory condition; Novak flew back from Paris to see him during his preparations for this event. Two, Djokovic clinched the year-end No. 1 ranking over the weekend, when Roger Federer pulled out of Paris; before playing a match, his goal of the last two months was achieved. Three, Djokovic had a more important event to play next week, at the season-ending World Tour Finals in London. Four, Novak himself had been sick over the weekend.
Still, he seemed to be in a good mood, and in fine form, against Querrey to start. Djokovic walked on court in his traditional Halloween mask—this time he came in as Darth Vader. And he was in total control of the match through the first eight games. He was doing what he does best, shrinking the court and forcing an erratic Querrey to try for too much. Djokovic won the first set at love, and when he broke Querrey at the start of the second with a much-harder-than-it-looked running crosscourt forehand, the match appeared well in hand.
There’s a funny thing about winning a 6-0 set, though, especially if your opponent isn’t all that bad. It can make it harder to win the next set. If you win a first set, say, 6-4, it’s not going to bother you if your opponent wins a couple of games and stays on serve at the start of the second. But when he breaks back for 2-2, as Querrey did today, it can make you start to wonder: I can't actually lose this thing, can I? Which, of course, makes it that much more likely that you might just lose that thing.
Whatever was going through Djokovic’s mind in the second set, the upshot was that he went from cruise control to achy and unsure of himself in the span of half an hour. This, of course, is nothing new for a tennis player, and nothing new for Djokovic in particular. While he has been a model of steadiness this fall, and for the majority of 2012, his match with Querrey today showed again that Djokovic often deals with adversity by first giving into it, and then, when he has nothing left to lose, relaxing and slamming his way out of it. It could have happened again today, as Djokovic played his best game of the third set when he was down 3-5, holding with ease. But Querrey’s serve, especially indoors, was too much to overcome in the final game. Sam started and ended it with a service winner. He didn’t Novak a chance to hit another “Shot.”
I think all of the issues I mentioned above came together to keep Djokovic from finding his way out of this one—he didn’t, when all was said and done, need to win. I do wish, when things go south for him, that he wouldn’t leave us guessing with his body language about how much he really wants to be out there. But that’s Novak, and on most days it works for him.
As I said, Querrey wouldn’t let him escape this time. Sam, as good as he is, isn’t known as a gritty warrior, and unlike his doubles partner John Isner this season, he’s no upset artist. Before today, Querrey had never beaten Djokovic, Federer, or Nadal, and he has just one win over Murray. I’ve written a couple of times this fall about how Querrey is solid enough to keep himself in the Top 25 without too much trouble, but that he didn’t have anything to threaten the guys in the Top 10. Should that assessment be revised after today?
Possibly. Querrey obviously just beat someone in the Top 10, and he did it by hanging tough, using his serve to get him out of trouble, and going after his forehand. Journalist Richard Evans said today that Querrey told him he needed to stop “brushing” up on his forehand for topspin and hit through it more. If that’s what he decided to do against Djokovic, he’s onto something. We’ll see. He won’t have it easy in the next round, where he faces Milos Raonic.
Querrey’s win made me think of a broader ATP trend that has been much discussed: the aging of the sport. For the last two years, observers of the game like myself have pointed toward young guys like Raonic, Grigor Dimitrov, Alexandr Dolgopolov, Bernard Tomic, and, as of this week, 21-year-old Jerzy Janowicz as the ones to watch for the future. And why wouldn’t we? They’re young. But it’s interesting that in the same week that the 25-year-old Querrey beat Djokovic, Dimitrov and Dolgopolov both lost early, Raonic was nearly upset in his opener, and Tomic was arrested in a brawl back in Australia. Also today, 26-year-old Kevin Anderson upset Richard Gasquet, while 30-year-old Julien Benneteau, who reached a career-high ranking of No. 33 earlier this month, nearly took out his countryman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Maybe these older guys are worth a second look.