Inactivity can do strange things to a tennis player, even one as good as Novak Djokovic. When the battles come thick and fast, good habits quickly become locked in; lose that rhythm, and it becomes trickier to judge the subtle fluctuations of mood and momentum that win matches.
You can hit forehands and backhands all day long, sweat blood in the gym and on the track, but even the most meticulous dress rehearsal cannot fully prepare a player for the physical and mental demands of opening night. Match fitness, making the right decisions in pressure situations, reading an opponent and knowing when to bide your time, when to push harder – these are qualities forged only in the heat of competition.
Not even Djokovic is above these immutable truths and, 47 days after he last struck a tennis ball in anger, the world No 1 struggled, fretted and fought before fading dramatically down the home straight as he was beaten 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 6-1 by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain at the Monte Carlo Masters.
It was a committed and at times inspired performance by the 46th-ranked Davidovich Fokina, whose only previous win over a top-10 player came on the same court against Matteo Berrettini last year, when the 22-year-old went on to reach the last eight. But if the outcome was understandable, given that this was only Djokovic’s fourth match of the season, the manner in which the top-ranked Serbian fell away in the decider still came as a shock.
“I didn’t like the way I felt physically in the third,” said Djokovic, whose refusal to take a Covid vaccine has so limited his activity. “I just ran out of gas completely. Just couldn’t really stay in the rally with him. I mean, if you can’t stay in the rally, not feeling your legs on the clay, it’s mission impossible.
“I don’t like that, that kind of feeling I experienced in the third, but, you know, I’m going to look with my team into reasons why that was the case and go back to the drawing board and hopefully next week will be better.”
Those reasons should not be hard to come by. Djokovic’s ability to outlast and endure has been proven time and again over the past decade, and more matches will no doubt quickly bring more stamina. Performances like this will not make those matches any easier to come by, however, and while Djokovic rightly pointed out that he is rarely at his best early in the clay-court swing, he will be eager to avoid any repeat at next week’s Serbia Open, where Andrey Rublev is the only other top-10 player on the entry list.
Here, Djokovic looked out of touch from the outset, quickly racking up mistakes as Davidovich Fokina, hammering forehands and patrolling the baseline with muscular athleticism, claimed three breaks to take the first set. When the Spaniard battled his way through a 15-minute service game to consolidate an early break in the second, the outcome began to assume an air of inevitability. But Djokovic has lost none of his famed stubbornness, and the setback seemed only to galvanise him. He responded by reeling off 10 points in succession and, despite failing to serve out the set at 5-4 amid more error-strewn play, the Serb capped a fine transition from defence to attack with a forehand winner to seal the tiebreak.
Now Djokovic eyed the crowd intently, holding a finger to his ear and nodding in “I-told-you-so” fashion before emitting a triumphant bellow. Similar scenes have been played out countless times down the years, and we know how the story usually ends. But Davidovich Fokina evidently hadn’t been paying attention, and when Djokovic returned from a change of attire only to blow a 40-15 lead on his serve amid much self-castigation, the Spaniard set about fashioning his own denouement.
“[When] I lost the second set, I went to the bathroom to reset my mind and just play, from the beginning of the third set, harder,” said Davidovich Fokina, who showed no compunction about hurling himself across the clay in pursuit of victory, and was rewarded for his troubles with a bloodied hand that required treatment midway through the second set.
“I fell down many times, but I just wanted to be focused for the next point. I didn’t care if I was bleeding or hurting my hip, [it] doesn’t matter. I was playing against the No 1.
“I knew Nole didn’t have the confidence because he didn’t play a lot this season. I had my chances in the beginning of the match and I took them. When he won the second set it was tough mentally, but I work hard to be focused. I had to be prepared for the war.”
And so Djokovic moves on from Monte Carlo, where he lives and trains, to the equally familiar environs of his native Belgrade. There will be no temptation to hit the panic button just yet – lest we forget, he was beaten early in Monte Carlo last year by Britain’s Dan Evans, yet still went on to claim the spoils at Roland Garros – but he will certainly be looking for a marked improvement.
“I was hanging on the ropes the entire match,” said Djokovic, who was broken nine times and accumulated 51 unforced errors in total. “I was really chasing the result constantly.
“He could have won this match in straight sets, and I just kind of fought my way through to the third, but then I just, physically, completely collapsed. I couldn’t move any more.”