The birth of a champion: Novak Djokovic
It was the January of 2008. Things had been going according to script in the world of tennis. Roger Federer had won the year ending Tennis Masters Cup for the fourth time in his career and finished another season with three Grand Slam victories under his belt. The only player on the pro circuit who seemed to have any chance against the maestro was the gritty Spaniard Rafael Nadal who was ready to toil and wear out his genius any opportunity he had. But clay was the only surface where there seemed to be any threat to the unstoppable might of the great champion.
The first Grand Slam of the year beckoned. The continent of Australia welcomed the best tennis players from the world to showcase their talent under the hot Melbourne sun. Three out of the past four years, the crown had fallen into the same hands; 2005 was the only year when the mercurial genius of Marat Safin had managed to change the script and win the major of the Asia Pacific. The way that big servers and hard hitting players like Fernando Gonzales and Andy Roddick had been brushed aside last year was still a memory fresh in the minds of everyone who watched. Could anything different happen this year? Time would tell.
The Australian Open of 2008 was a first of sorts in many senses. The surface was changed from ‘Rebound Ace’ to ‘Plexicushion’ which was purported to be a fractionally faster surface. Anti-corruption policing was implemented in the wake of corruption charges against players like the Russian Nikolay Davydenko. There were some incidents of crowd trouble and a video controversy with 2006 finalist Marcos Baghdatis. But the shock of the tournament was yet to come. The Serbians in the tournament had been doing very well, with both Novak Djokovic and Ana Ivanovic advancing to the last few rounds and another giving the defending champion a run for his money in the seemingly regulation 3rd round match which turned into a four and a half hours epic. It finally went in favour of Federer but he had to get his A- game out against Tipsarevic and win the final set 10-8. The tough match of the tournament was done, or so everyone thought.
Federer had met Djokovic the previous January en route to victory and dropped only 20 points on his serve to wrap up the fourth round match in straight sets. However, the talented Serb had come a long way since then, even reaching his first Grand Slam final where he lost to Federer. The moment was ripe for a thrilling semi-final contest and the excitement was very palpable. Was there an upset on the cards or was Federer going to be at his clinical best at putting down the challenge posed by Nole? The match started with both players holding their serves and Federer drawing first blood as he broke and then held his own serve to go up 5-3. However, a minor lapse of concentration on Federer’s part was all that took for Djokovic to come back into the set with a break back. The next service game however, Federer got uncharacteristically casual with two passing backhands at 30-30, which handed the Serbian the first set 7-5. Game on.
The second set saw Djokovic working harder, with his sheer athleticism coming into the fray. What he lacked in muscle, he was making up in stamina for sure. The first break of the set went Djokovic’s way as he managed an incredible passing shot from the backhand, running in from the baseline. The unforced errors from Federer’s racquet kept on growing even as he tried his best to play the ball deeper into the lines. It was getting clear who was winning the battle once the rallies got longer. The way Novak started controlling the rallies from the back of the baseline was fast getting alarming for Federer supporters. Trailing 1-4, Federer got broken again, seemingly stunned by Djokovic’s relentless aggression before he managed to break Djokovic back to restore some sanity. Though he managed to hold serve for 3-5, Djokovic made no mistake in this game, closing out the set with an unreturnable serve and then an ace. Two sets to love. Could Federer come back from the brink? He had obviously been in this position before, but no one could have predicted this at the start of the match for sure.
The third set saw both players holding serve easily, except in Nole’s second service game where he had to save 3 break points after coming back from a 0-40 deficit. Roger looked to be gaining in confidence as he held more easily, but the unforced error count kept creeping up all the same. The third set went into a decisive tie breaker where Federer played one of the best shots of his career under pressure; an insane inside out backhand which left Djokovic gasping in despair and the crowd in sheer awe. But that was not enough for Roger. He had no answer to Djokovic’s force as he netted his final forehand of the match, trailing 5-6 in the tie breaker, to give the victory to the Serb.
Djokovic went on to beat the talented Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who also incidentally was playing his maiden Grand Slam final after overcoming Rafael Nadal in the semi finals. The match went to four sets after Nole dropped his first set of the tournament, but the victory was still very commanding. All the years of retiring from matches because of sheer fatigue and breaking racquets in frustration had finally cumulated into a superlative effort good enough to dethrone the maestro and snatch the crown. This was also the first time in three years that anyone apart from Federer or Nadal had managed to lay their hands on a major. Djokovic actually took a couple of more years before he could establish himself firmly as a prime contender on the pro circuit with the dream run he had in 2011, but the warrior had already tasted blood. You always remember your first time, as they say. The feeling was all too familiar for Federer; he was on the other side back in 2003. For Novak and the rest of the tennis world, it was the dawn of a new era. A champion was born that day.