You can have all the GOAT debates you want, but Novak Djokovic is inevitable
Do you know what inevitability looks like?
Until earlier this week, it would have been tempting to answer that with either "Thanos" or "Rafael Nadal winning after taking the court at Roland Garros". But after the events of the last couple of days, we arguably have an even better one: Novak Djokovic fighting like a man possessed whenever he faces adversity.
Stefanos Tsitsipas went up two sets to love in the Roland Garros final on Sunday, and ordinarily he would've been considered the favorite to win the title from there. But with Novak Djokovic on the other side of the net, we knew the Greek was still the underdog.
We also knew that Djokovic was going to make Tsitsipas break his back while trying to get over the line. And when that actually happened - the 22-year-old took a medical timeout for a back issue at the end of the third set - we knew that a Djokovic win was inevitable.
How do you describe a player who, after going down two sets to love, somehow makes it seem like all the pressure is on the shoulders of his opponent? How do you describe a phenomenon like Novak Djokovic?
Novak Djokovic and the art of defying logic, science and everything else in between
Two days ago, the Serb produced an all-time great performance to pull off the ultimate challenge in sport: stopping the inevitability that is a Rafael Nadal win on clay. But that took a very long and grueling four hours and 11 minutes, which would have extracted a heavy toll on Djokovic's body as well as mind.
To beat Rafael Nadal at Roland Garros, you don't just have to play a fantastic tennis match. You have to strain every muscle and every fiber you possess, stretch yourself beyond any known limits of the human body, and keep doing that hour after hour until the ball doesn't come back any more.
So for Novak Djokovic to turn around from that and have to take on an opponent 12 years his junior - who was also, incidentally, in the form of his life - seemed like the cruelest joke of a tournament already filled with them. The first two sets of the final on Sunday seemed to confirm that too; Novak Djokovic looked a step slow and an idea short, which allowed Stefanos Tsitsipas to assume full control of the proceedings.
But as we've seen several times over the last year alone - against Pablo Carreno Busta at last year's Roland Garros, against Taylor Fritz and Alexander Zverev at this year's Australian Open, and against Lorenzo Musetti just last week - that's where the opponent is at his most vulnerable. The moment Novak Djokovic knows he can't afford to be less than superhuman anymore, he just stops being that.
Stefanos Tsitsipas certainly tried gamely. He never gave up the fight, and even in the pivotal game of the third set where he got broken, he was just a couple of centimeters away from escaping with a hold. But there was a fundamental flaw in the Greek's game that was always in danger of getting exposed, and from 3-1 in the third set Novak Djokovic was all over it.
Stefanos Tsitsipas doesn't have a bad backhand. He just doesn't have point-ending power on it, so any extended backhand-to-backhand rally was always going to put him in danger.
In the first two sets Tsitsipas did a great job of hitting his backhand with consistent depth, and preventing Djokovic from attacking that wing and taking control of the point. But when the Serb started leaning into own backhand with more intensity, Tsitsipas started coughing up one too many short replies. And when he realized how that was hurting him, the 22-year-old starting going for the down-the-line change-up too soon in the rally - with predictably disastrous results.
The timeout between the third and fourth sets did nothing to help Stefanos Tsitsipas regroup, because how can medical treatment fix an inherent problem with your game? The Greek's baseline assertiveness from the first two sets seemed like a distant memory in the last three. All he seemed to be doing in the second half of the match was scramble from one end of the court to another in a bid to retrieve Djokovic's deep and heavy groundstrokes.
There was always the intimidation factor to deal with too, of course. When Novak Djokovic comes at you with his trademark point-to-point intensity, you can't help but feel the need to retreat. As the Serb grew in confidence with every passing minute, Tsitsipas seemed to slump lower and lower.
It doesn't help either if you can't keep up physically with a player who is supposedly well past his peak. By the end of the match Stefanos Tsitsipas looked like he had run 10 marathons in a row, while Novak Djokovic looked like he could run a hundred marathons if he had to.
Just how does a 22-year-old get so physically outmatched by a guy in his mid-30s? I thought the world we live in follows rules of logic and science?
Novak Djokovic may have just ended the GOAT debate
We can talk all day about the X's and O's of Stefanos Tsitsipas' game, and how he needs to build up his physicality to challenge the guys at the top. But the truth of the matter is that there is a huge gulf between not just Tsitsipas and Novak Djokovic, but between every young player and Novak Djokovic.
At the Australian Open Daniil Medvedev was given a proper thrashing, while Alexander Zverev was teased with a little hope before it was snatched away abruptly. Stefanos Tsitsipas has taken Novak Djokovic to five sets in consecutive French Opens, but he has fallen short physically both times. And Dominic Thiem is so spent with the effort of repeatedly taking on the Big 3 in Grand Slams, that nobody knows whether he'll ever get back to his best again.
Admittedly, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have also begun to show signs of wear and tear; neither of them plays a full schedule anymore. But Novak Djokovic? He can just go all day long, all week long, all month long, all year long, and never look like he's ever in danger of breaking down.
We've seen numerous examples of it throughout his career, but it still comes as a bit of a shock when Novak Djokovic produces yet another biology-defying feat. His ability to overcome draining slugfests, crushing setbacks and insurmountable hurdles simply never gets old - even if he himself is getting on in years.
The man had already done something that neither Roger Federer nor Rafael Nadal had - winning all four Slams in a row. Now he has gone a step further and done something that no man in the Open Era has done - winning each of the Slams at least twice.
The 34-year-old has done it the hard way too; he has beaten Roger Federer multiple times at Wimbledon and Rafael Nadal multiple times at Roland Garros. And at 19 Slams, he is now just one short of the all-time record held by those two fine gentlemen.
Does he need to equal their tally to be considered the greatest of all time? Djokovic has already proven he is more versatile across surfaces, more authoritative in their respective head-to-heads, and more dominant over the rest of the field - the last of which is attested by his record of most weeks as World No. 1.
Just about any kind of win on Sunday would've solidified Novak Djokovic's claim to the GOAT title. But the Serb did it in a way that he never had in a Slam final before, and in a way that few of us expected - from two sets to love down, outlasting one of the fittest young players in the world. It's almost like Djokovic didn't want even a seed of doubt to remain in anyone's mind.
There will always be some who claim that Roger Federer's tennis is the most soul-stirring of all. And there are those who insist that Rafael Nadal's never-say-die attitude is the stuff of legend. But if tennis is judged as a competitive endeavor where the ultimate objective is to win, then Novak Djokovic has no equal.
In any case though, is there any doubt that he will overtake the Slam record too over the next few months? He's got that mad glint in his eye again, and we know what that means.
If there's one thing we've learned over the course of the last 10 years, it is that Novak Djokovic - together with his assault on every tennis feat in existence - is simply inevitable.