A week of mixed fortunes for Novak Djokovic gave way to a weekend of wonders at the ATP Finals in Turin.
Seven days ago, when Djokovic defeated Holger Rune to cement the year-end No 1 ranking for a record-extending eighth time, the direction of travel seemed clear for the defending champion. Though he played down his ambitions, insisting he had got what he came for and anything else would be a bonus, there was also the small matter of a possible record seventh title to consider. This, surely, was a story we’d read before.
Yet as Djokovic struggled to navigate the group stage, it seemed his motivation had waned. Taken the distance in all three of his matches, the 36-year-old came through against Rune and Hubert Hurkacz but suffered a first ever defeat to Jannik Sinner, leaving his semi-final prospects in the balance. Ironically, it fell to Sinner to keep him in contention, the Italian world No 4 clinching a tight win over Rune to ensure Djokovic advanced from Green Group in second place.
From there, though, the Serb was a player transformed. Having produced one of his best performances of the season to claim an emphatic win over Carlos Alcaraz on Saturday, he continued in the same imperious vein in Sunday’s rematch with Sinner, avenging his midweek loss with a dominant 6-3, 6-3 victory. With his latest triumph of what has been another stellar season, Djokovic moved clear of Roger Federer as the most successful player in the history of the eight-man event, while laying down a marker for next season against two of the three young pretenders to his throne, along with Rune.
“I think the match against Alcaraz last night and the one tonight [were] probably the two best matches, under the circumstances, that I’ve played this season, against two players that are in fantastic form,” said Djokovic after claiming his seventh title of the season. “The quality of Alcaraz and Sinner, we all know.
“Playing Sinner tonight in front of his home crowd, and the way I finished the tournament and finished the season, is amazing. I’m very, very proud of the performance.
“After I clinched the year[-end] No 1 with the first win over Rune, I was not mentally present fully in the tournament. After that I [had a] kind of half in, half out feeling. That reflected in my level of tennis and my performance, and the way I felt on the court.
“Obviously, thanks to Sinner for allowing me to be in the semi-finals. When I was there, I thought, ‘Now, OK, I’m going to try and step it up.’ And I did. I played two really high-level matches.”
It is not the first time this season that Djokovic has overcome adversity to produce his best tennis at the sharp end of a big tournament. The Serb was hobbled by a hamstring injury in the early rounds of the Australian Open, struggled to find any kind of form before Roland Garros, and almost came a cropper against Laslo Djere, his fellow countryman, in the second round of the US Open. On each occasion, he rebounded to win the tournament, a narrow loss to Alcaraz in an epic Wimbledon final the only blot on his record in the majors.
So Goran Ivanisevic, the 24-time grand slam champion’s coach, spoke for many when he suggested that, once his man survived the group stage, there was a certain inevitability about the success of Djokovic’s latest assault on the record books.
“I knew as soon as he got into the semi-final, he was going to win the tournament,” said Ivanisevic. “The mentality changed. The new Novak Djokovic arrived on the court from Saturday. When the real Novak Djokovic arrives on the court, then the moment is [that] nobody can play with him.”
The question of how to alter that seemingly immutable reality is one that will occupy his rivals deeply in the eight weeks between now and next year’s Australian Open. On Saturday night, Alcaraz left Turin talking of the need to improve if he is to beat “the best player in the world”. Twenty-four hours later, Sinner spoke in similar terms.
“Tennis is interesting because, as you can see, every day is different, no?” said the 22-year-old. “Some days I won against him. Here, the same conditions again and you lose. But I think generally, today, I saw that I still have to improve, for sure. I believe that he makes me a better player, like all the other players have done who I lost to. I now have to work on this.
“He’s an inspiration, because he worked throughout the whole years before, when he was younger, in the right way to get to this point. That’s also one of my goals.”
Despite the chastening nature of his defeat, Sinner remains on a stellar trajectory. His smooth, forceful ground game has long marked him out as special, but his partnership with Simone Vagnozzi and Darren Cahill, the coaches he introduced to his team last year after parting ways with his childhood mentor Riccardo Piatti, has yielded improvements in virtually every aspect of the game. Sinner’s serve has become a more potent and accurate weapon. His net game has been a revelation. The addition of drop shots to his repertoire has expanded his tactical options, while his movement, mentality and strength have all come on in leap and bounds.
With Djokovic in peerless form, however, those virtues were as nothing. Statistics do not always reflect the nature of a match, but here they were hard to ignore. A serving masterclass yielded 13 aces, with Djokovic winning 91% of the points on his first delivery and an outstanding 64% on the second. His forehand eclipsed Sinner’s for speed, and yet for all the venom that produced an overall haul of 20 winners, the Serb made just five unforced errors, less than half Sinner’s total. That metronomic consistency extended to Djokovic’s returning, the depth and penetration of which enabled him to win more than half Sinner’s second serve points.
The last thing a player of Djokovic’s experience needs is a dress rehearsal, and yet that is exactly what he got when he faced Sinner on Tuesday night. He spoke ominously beforehand of his defeat to the Italian being a “good preparation tool” for the final, and those words rang true as he not only made light of the ferociously partisan crowd, but used it to his advantage to claim the first break.
With Sinner serving at deuce in the fourth game, Djokovic made the most of a disturbance in the stands, pausing theatrically three times to gaze up at the commotion. Boos and whistles rained down from the stands, but the delay seemed calculated by the Serb, giving Sinner plenty of time to ponder the loss of a 40-15 lead. Djokovic duly extracted two errors from the Italian to break for 3-1, and from that point the crowd was never a factor again. Djokovic’s dominance was such that, from 5-3 in the first set, he won 14 straight points to go a set and a break up, effectively putting the contest beyond Sinner’s reach.
“I think I prepared myself very well for the match, for the atmosphere,” said Djokovic. “I knew that the place is going to go wild, it’s going to be very loud, the whole stadium supporting him. I knew that.
“But one thing is to know and expect, another thing is to actually experience. So I think the match that we had in the group stage really helped me prepare myself mentally and emotionally for what was coming up.
“I delivered when I needed to, I stayed tough, and I had the better mentality. When I clinched the year[-end] No 1 with the first win over Rune, I kind of felt satisfied with that, and I was not really fully into my remaining matches of the group. But luckily for me I got the chance to be in the semis, and when I got that I kind of switched on and delivered my A game.”
As Djokovic has shown time and again, it is a level that few can live with.