Novak Djokovic can taste it.
He knows that Carlos Alcaraz hasn’t fully figured out how to compete at the major-tournament level. He knows that Alcaraz didn’t have to go through him (or Rafael Nadal) at the 2022 U.S. Open. He knows that Alcaraz was uniquely and profoundly anxious in the 2023 Roland Garros semifinal played a few weeks ago, and that it will take a special leap forward for Alcaraz to find a winning formula at Wimbledon. Alcaraz is smart and clever and capable, but even for the Spaniard, it will take a lot of heavy lifting to achieve the balance of relaxation and intensity Novak Djokovic has displayed for the better part of the past 13 years of major-tournament tennis.
Djokovic knows how to compete, cope, and confront. He knows not just how to hit a tennis ball under pressure, but how to manage his emotions and keep his surroundings at arm’s length. Novak Djokovic doesn’t just know how to deal with pressure itself; he knows how to deal with the tennis player’s worst enemy: bad performance.
When a tennis player plays poorly, there’s no coach there to hold his hand or call a timeout and confer the way a basketball coach can immediately regather his players in the huddle. When a tennis player plays poorly — it is similar in golf — the solo athlete hears the voices in the head, the sounds of self-loathing and disapproval. It is so easy — moreover, natural — for a tennis player to lose confidence and trust when it’s all falling apart.
To be sure, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are legendary performers. They are legendary — along with Serena Williams and Steffi Graff and the other mega-champions of tennis history — because they have often been able to play well in a specifically important period of time after 30 or 45 minutes of playing poorly. All of the greatest champions of tennis have been able to frequently survive in a match for 30 or 45 minutes (instead of unraveling and quickly losing a match the way the Bernard Tomices would do), remain in the fray long enough to somehow reach a tiebreaker, and then rediscover their best (or at least, their most mistake-free) tennis for the three or four most important minutes of a two- or three-hour battle.
A match 95 percent of players would ordinarily lose, the great champions win. All the great ones have done this many times over. They wouldn’t have won 18, 20, 22 major championships without that skill.
However, Novak Djokovic has done this more often — and better — than anyone else.
It’s the ultimate, supreme, central reality of who he is as a tennis player. He is comfortable being uncomfortable on an unmatched scale. Nadal could play through pain and suffering. Djokovic plays through the fatigue and the physical grind, but also through the emotional storms and the tumult of the crowd. He relishes friction and confusion. He resets himself in the midst of turmoil, and rescues himself from disadvantageous positions, more quickly and decisively than any other tennis player.
If Carlos Alcaraz can learn — in the span of a few weeks — how to cope with situations the way Djokovic does, Nole will tip the cap with respect. If Alcaraz can perfectly recalibrate his body-mind dualism after his stress-induced loss to Djokovic in France, so be it.
Novak Djokovic will certainly bet — as will everyone else — that the youngster from Spain will not put together the whole puzzle in the span of one month. It’s not impossible — Alcaraz is certainly special — but it’s also unlikely.
If Djokovic and Alcaraz meet at Wimbledon, Djokovic knows he has the upper hand.
He can taste that 8th championship at The All-England Club.
He is already the winningest men’s major singles champion of all time. He is ready to make even more history at Wimbledon.
Tennis with an Accent 