Goran Ivanisevic has seen it occur so many instances over the previous 4 years.
His star pupil, Novak Djokovic, exhibits as much as the observe courtroom in a foul temper, griping that his sport is a catastrophe, that he must get higher… at every part. His serve, his attacking play, even his backhand — one of many nice backhands tennis has ever seen — it’s all a large number.
There may be barely any acknowledgement of the resume, the 24 Grand Slam titles, the 74 different tour trophies, and greater than 1,000 match victories. He’s obtained to enhance, or he’s cooked.
“He’s loopy,” Ivanisevic mentioned of Djokovic with a shake of the pinnacle, halfway via final yr, when Djokovic was within the midst of yet one more of the best seasons any tennis participant has ever put collectively and nonetheless whining to his coach at each flip.
Excellent tennis gamers typically categorical a want to attempt to enhance, and Djokovic isn’t any totally different. Nevertheless it’s one factor to say it, and it’s one other factor to really do it, particularly after you’ve reached the head of the game, time and again and over.
In 2015, Djokovic stampeded via maybe essentially the most ridiculous tennis marketing campaign any man has managed. It’s the season Djokovic typically mentions when he’s requested to decide on the very best model of himself. That occurs rather a lot now, since he has rendered the best male of all time debate moot — the one particular person left to check Djokovic with is Djokovic.
He has gained essentially the most Grand Slam singles titles, essentially the most Masters 1,000 titles, that are the subsequent largest occasions on the lads’s tour, and has spent extra weeks (406 and counting) ranked No 1 on this planet than anybody else.
He reached all 4 Grand Slam finals in that 2015 season and gained three of them (shedding on the French Open to Stan Wawrinka). He went wire-to-wire because the world No 1. He performed in 15 consecutive finals and gained 11 of them. There was a ‘Massive 4’ again then that additionally included Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray. Djokovic went 15-4 towards these three and was 4-0 towards Nadal, his high rival.
Regular conduct after a season like that’s to simply hold doing what works. Djokovic doesn’t actually do regular conduct, and he doesn’t actually play tennis right this moment the best way he did in 2015, when he defended the courtroom as few others may, then pulled rabbits out of hats, profitable so many factors he had no enterprise profitable.
That could be a far cry from Djokovic’s profitable formulation final season, the one he’ll seemingly use to kickstart his 2024 this month in Australia. All of Djokovic’s finest seasons share a theme — they get rolling in January in Australia, the place Djokovic is about to attempt to win an eleventh Australian Open males’s singles title. He gained his tenth final yr, essentially the most in historical past.
He describes Australia as his “pleased place”, a rustic the place he finds his groove, and nothing — not even pulled or torn muscular tissues — can take him out of it. He has not misplaced a match on the ‘A.O.’ in six years.
“It’s essential to have the correct begin, sort of launch into the remainder of the season,” he mentioned through the United Cup, the blended group competitors he performed earlier than 2024’s first Grand Slam. “The extra you win in a sure event, the extra comfy and assured you’re feeling each subsequent time you arrive.”
However Djokovic’s success is about a lot greater than good karma. It’s about determining the best way to change his sport to accommodate his ageing physique, which he acknowledges doesn’t transfer in addition to it as soon as did, and to maintain up with the evolution of a sport that’s now far much less pleasant to defenders who wish to chase balls throughout the again of the courtroom and pull rabbits out of hats.
With the highest gamers hitting with extra energy and precision than ever, defending all day, quite than making an attempt to take the initiative and end factors, has grow to be more and more troublesome on the highest degree.
Djokovic has had three really epic years — 2011, 2015 and 2023. In every of them, he gained three Grand Slam finals and armloads of different trophies.
Fortunately for us, his final epic season earlier than 2023 occurred simply after the revolution in superior tennis evaluation, making potential a revelatory deep dive into Djokovic then and now.
The metrics are the byproduct of ball and participant monitoring information collected via high-speed cameras and analyzed in real-time from know-how developed by a British firm, TennisViz, and Tennis Information Improvements (T.D.I), a three way partnership of the ATP Tour and ATP Media.
These mixed efforts have delivered followers, gamers and coaches info that earlier generations may by no means dream of capturing, displaying whether or not a participant is attacking or defending on each shot; the standard of these pictures based mostly on the pace, spin, and touchdown spot; how typically they win factors they shouldn’t — their so-called steal rating; how scientific they’re at ending factors they need to win; and the way typically they win the all-important baseline battles that a lot of recent tennis has grow to be.
The info tells the story of the evolution of Djokovic, from somebody who specialised in profitable tennis wars of attrition, to somebody who now seems to be to assault at practically each alternative.
In numerical phrases, the adjustments could seem, on the floor, to be incremental, however in a sport that activates a handful of factors in every match, seemingly small adjustments may end up in massive variations. Keep in mind, Djokovic has gained 14 of his 24 Grand Slam titles since 2015.
It begins with the serve.
Djokovic’s serve is almost unrecognizable from 2015. Full props on that to Ivanisevic, who possessed a deadly serve in his taking part in days and has labored tirelessly with Djokovic since 2019, reaching startling outcomes. Djokovic’s first serve averaged 120.1 miles per hour in 2023, in contrast with 115.4 in 2015.
That’s not about improved racket know-how or lighter balls. The tour common has barely budged, rising from 116.1mph to 116.7.
That Djokovic serve just isn’t solely sooner but in addition touchdown in higher spots – 5 centimeters nearer to the strains in 2023 than in 2015, and eight centimeters nearer to them than the tour common. That’s essential it doesn’t matter what floor he’s taking part in on, however it may be particularly potent on the slick, quick ones of Melbourne Park, the place serves to the sideline corners slide off the courtroom virtually immediately.
Djokovic has lengthy been one of many nice serve returners in tennis historical past. He’s higher at that now, too. His return of his opponent’s second serve landed on the backhand wing on 47 per cent of factors in 2023, in contrast with 39 per cent in 2015, placing him in a much better place to assault.
As soon as the factors took form final season, Djokovic seized an attacking place 26 per cent of the time, in contrast with 21 per cent in 2015. Tennis geeks check with a participant’s capacity to win factors from an attacking place because the ‘conversion fee’. Final season, Djokovic’s conversion fee was a scientific 72.1 per cent, high within the sport and three.3 share factors greater than his conversion fee of 68.8 per cent in 2015. The tour common is 66 per cent.
How did he grow to be so scientific? His forehand obtained two miles per hour sooner over the previous eight years. That helps.
Additionally, his attacking place was 60 centimeters additional into the courtroom than it was in 2015, which means he’s hitting the ball far sooner than he used to, suffocating opponents by stealing cut up seconds from their restoration and preparation instances.
The results of his growing aggressiveness was a lower in how a lot he needed to defend, what number of balls he needed to chase down, and what number of rabbits he needed to pull out of hats. Tennis geeks check with that as a participant’s ‘steal rating’, which is the proportion of factors a participant wins after being in a defensive place.
As thrilling as it’s to claw again a degree that seems misplaced, it’s exhausting and severely laborious on a 36-year-old physique. Nobody is aware of that higher than Djokovic.
In 2015, Djokovic and Nadal co-led the game with a steal rating of 43.3 per cent. That’s sort of loopy to consider — virtually half the time their outgunned opponents had Djokovic and Nadal on the run, these poor overmatched souls nonetheless misplaced the purpose.
Final season, Djokovic’s steal rating was a far much less miraculous 36.4 per cent, nonetheless above the tour common of 34 per cent and rather a lot kinder to these 36-year-old knees. In different phrases, he’s nonetheless higher than most at making magic occur when he must, however he’s grow to be a lot extra environment friendly that he’s profitable with out expending as a lot vitality.
It’s a logical technique for any ageing nice. Federer turned extra aggressive, and Nadal has tried to as nicely, coming to the online to complete factors when the alternatives are there. However Djokovic has been extra profitable than each, profitable so most of the largest titles within the sport at this level in his profession.
For opponents, there actually is just one resolution: assault earlier than he assaults, make him run, and drive him to play extra defensively, the best way he did throughout his earlier tennis life.
Simpler mentioned than executed, after all.
The profitable formulation has Djokovic setting massive targets for 2024. “It’s not a secret that I wish to break extra information and make extra historical past,” he mentioned. “That’s one thing that retains motivating me.”
He needs extra Grand Slam titles, an Olympic medal, which has one way or the other eluded him, a Davis Cup with Serbia. He relishes thrashing the younger weapons — gamers two tennis generations faraway from him who can’t perceive how he has refused to present method.
Djokovic battled a wrist harm through the United Cup. However anybody banking on that stopping him ought to keep in mind him profitable the Australian Open final yr with a severely injured hamstring that Ivanisevic mentioned would have precipitated most different gamers to give up and, in 2021, with a tear in an stomach muscle.
“I do know what I have to do to take care of my physique and thoughts and spirit within the optimum state to have the chance to interrupt information and to go additional,” Djokovic mentioned.
He nonetheless likes to play tennis, however profitable continues to be the first motivation, particularly when he’s on the highway and away from his household for weeks at a time.
“That mentality just isn’t altering for 2024 or any subsequent yr probably that I play,” he mentioned.
How he really performs the sport, nicely, which may be one other, ever-evolving story.
Simply ask Ivanisevic.
(High photograph: Manan Vatsyayana/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
