Novak Djokovic, Back in New York and Loving It as Never Before

For two years, Novak Djokovic has been dreaming about New York.

He has had loads of success right here, successful the U.S. Open 3 times. It’s the place he made certainly one of his most well-known photographs, returning Roger Federer’s serve with a walloping forehand when he was down double match level of their semifinal in 2011.

His thoughts, although, has been caught on certainly one of his lowest moments, simply earlier than the top of his disappointing loss within the 2021 U.S. Open singles closing towards Daniil Medvedev.

Djokovic was one win away from nearly the one factor he has not achieved in his profession — changing into the primary man since Rod Laver in 1969 to win all 4 Grand Slams in a single yr. He sat in his chair on the sideline earlier than the ultimate sport listening to the group of 23,000 in Arthur Ashe Stadium, who had lengthy principally cheered for his beloved opponents, roaring for him as an alternative. He sobbed right into a towel.

He knew that New York crowds appreciated seeing greatness and historical past. He had felt and heard them pulling for him as quickly as he walked onto the court docket, they usually had been nonetheless there for him as he sat on the sting of defeat.

“I fell in love with the New Yorkers and New York in a completely different way that day,” Djokovic stated throughout an interview on a quiet Wednesday night within the participant backyard exterior the stadium.

After lacking the event final yr due to his refusal to be vaccinated towards Covid-19, Djokovic is lastly again on the U.S. Open. Like his assortment of Grand Slam singles titles, now numbering 23 and essentially the most of any man, the love he felt that Sunday two years in the past appears solely to have grown, on each side.

“I cannot wait to have Novak back in New York,” Stacey Allaster, the event director, stated throughout a current news convention.

Djokovic has at all times been a gladiator on the court docket. He roars, kilos his chest, returns taunts from followers and smashes the occasional racket. He bought himself defaulted from the 2020 U.S. Open when he swatted a ball in anger and inadvertently hit a line decide.

But now, at 36, he has grown into being relaxed and introspective off it. While he has no scarcity of pointed political stances, which he doesn’t disguise, he additionally apologizes for being late, makes enjoyable of himself, and is simple with a smile. He needs folks to love him, and he isn’t afraid to confess it.

The public has seen extra of the latter because the French Open in June, when Djokovic overtook Federer and Rafael Nadal, his longtime rivals, within the race for essentially the most Grand Slam singles titles.

Fans packed the decrease bowl of Ashe for his first follow on the stadium final week. Amid cranking serves and banging backhand returns, Djokovic acceded to the shouted requests for his well-known tennis impersonations, mimicking the motions of Maria Sharapova, Andy Roddick, Pete Sampras and others which can be a part of a routine that started within the U.S. Open locker room in 2007, many championships in the past.

“Kind of a signal that I’m feeling very comfortable on the court,” he stated afterward. “Good fun. Positive energy.”

Afterward, he instructed Allaster that it was among the best follow periods he had ever had.

When safety guards gave the sign that the hitting session was nearing its finish, kids — and loads of adults, too — pushed towards the sting of the court docket, waving telephones and outsized tennis balls as they clamored for photos and autographs. Djokovic spent greater than 20 minutes working the sting of the court docket like a presidential candidate on a rope line as followers from the opposite aspect of it chanted his title, hoping to get him to return over there subsequent.

He couldn’t. A health club exercise awaited. He has not come for one more spherical of sympathy cheers. He is learning movies of the highest competitors, preserving to his strict routine, getting his sleep, consuming earlier than it will get too late, and watching each morsel of meals he places in his mouth.

Wednesday night time’s protein- and carbohydrate-packed dinner, eaten shortly after his health club session, was two salmon steaks, two giant baked candy potatoes, wholesome servings of small yellow potatoes and chickpeas, and a bowl of pasta with olive oil and contemporary greens.

“The matches are going to get tougher, more demanding as the tournament progresses,” he stated between bites. “So I’m always thinking in advance. I’m focusing on the next challenge, of course, but I also have in the back of my mind the long-term goal and the long-term plan, which is to win this tournament.”

Much has modified since Djokovic final got here near successful right here. He has turn into the elder legend of the game and solidified his standing as the best participant of the trendy period. Federer is retired. Nadal is recovering from surgical procedure and on the sting of retirement. Carlos Alcaraz, the 20-year-old Spanish upstart lengthy touted as the game’s subsequent large factor, has emerged forward of schedule to meet each lofty expectation. He is the U.S. Open’s reigning champion and the world No 1.

Fending him off, and all the opposite comers of the so-called subsequent subsequent era (an ungentle swipe on the mid- and late-20-somethings like Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas, whom Alcaraz has leapfrogged) is probably going the ultimate chapter of Djokovic’s profession. His Grand Slam rivalry this yr with Alcaraz, a uncommon and tantalizing intergenerational duel that pits uncooked expertise and athleticism towards inimitable expertise, is the story of the game.

Djokovic prevailed of their first match on the French Open, the place Alcaraz succumbed to stress-induced cramping, however misplaced in 5 thrilling units within the Wimbledon closing. Maybe it was a torch-passing second. Maybe not. Either manner, Djokovic is having fun with himself. Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner of Italy and Holger Rune of Denmark, he stated, are members of a era that unapologetically believes it’s able to beating him to win large tournaments. They are daring, and he loves that.

“My role nowadays is to prevent them from that,” he stated with the sly grin that has turn into a late-career trademark.

He can keep in mind when he was certainly one of them, in his late teenagers and early 20s, exhibiting up in New York and, like many gamers earlier than him, being blown away by the scale and power of the town. For a child from a mountain city within the Balkans, even one who had traveled all through Europe for tennis, it was lots.

On his first go to, he stayed with household associates in New Jersey, commuting day by day to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Every time he sees an indication for the Midtown Tunnel, his ideas drift again to the innocence of that first journey in 2003.

Now he spends the week earlier than the U.S. Open at a lodge in Manhattan, soaking within the power of the town, earlier than transferring along with his spouse and younger kids to a buddy’s property in Alpine, N.J. There, he switches into “lockdown mode” and finds peace and serenity among the many timber and nature, particularly on the times between matches, when he’ll typically follow with hitting companions there quite than trekking to Queens.

There is one other benefit to that locale. Djokovic has heard loads of tales within the locker room of gamers who’ve fallen sufferer to the pull of the New York night time. Some of them contain his friends, and he might have even accompanied them to a membership or two in an earlier life.

“I was lucky early on to have people around me that kept me at bay,” he stated. “But I did have freedom to explore and go around. Let’s say that I did get to know New York at night as well.”

That is not going to occur this yr, not with the reminiscence of the loss to Alcaraz so contemporary in his thoughts and the younger Spaniard presenting a problem equal to Djokovic’s biggest duels with Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray in his prime. After that Wimbledon loss, Djokovic put his rackets away for 2 weeks and headed for Croatia and Montenegro to trip along with his household within the mountains and the waters he is aware of so effectively. He pulled out of the National Bank Open in Toronto, citing fatigue.

The tennis schedule doesn’t indulge remorse and hindsight, although, and shortly it was time to start getting ready for the following quest, the tournaments that always unfold within the sweltering, late-summer humidity of Cincinnati and New York. He educated within the hottest occasions of European summer time days. Then he did two extra “big heat” exercises when he arrived in Cincinnati for the Western & Southern Open.

Good factor. Last Sunday’s closing towards Alcaraz was an enthralling, three-set slugfest that Djokovic gained in a deciding-set tiebreaker that lasted almost 4 hours and pushed him to the sting of warmth stroke. Alcaraz cramped within the climactic moments. Djokovic known as it one of many hardest psychological and bodily challenges of his profession.

A grueling check like that wasn’t actually part of his U.S. Open prep plan, however the intent was to win the event. It at all times is.

“How you win and how long does it take, that’s something that’s unpredictable,” he stated. “Better this way than losing a match like that, that’s for sure.”

Or, love and dreamy second apart, the one which occurred in New York the final time round. This yr, he hopes, one other type of dream awaits.