You turn 30. You lose a step. You stop winning every Grand Slam in sight. You get injured. Your ranking drops. You try to come back and you struggle. You look like a shadow of your old self. You hear the doubters, and even some of your own fans, calling for you to retire, so you don’t “ruin your legacy.” Then, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, it all comes together. You win a Grand Slam, and just like that, everything is right with the world again.
Since 2017, that’s how life has worked for the Big 3—Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic—of men’s tennis. We forget now that Federer endured five years of frustration, of final-round losses and gut-wrenching near misses, in his failed pursuit of an 18th Grand Slam title from 2012 to 2016. We forget that Nadal actually failed to win the French Open in 2015 and 2016—yes, it happened—and that, as he was aging, his on-court anxieties only seemed to be growing. We forget all of that because, since the start of 2017, Federer and Nadal have won six of seven majors and traded the No. 1 ranking back and forth between them. It’s as if they never left Mt. Olympus.
Are we destined to forget Djokovic’s recent struggles—his “personal issues,” his elbow surgery, his listless early-2018 performances—now that he has won Wimbledon and Cincinnati, and joined Federer and Nadal in the over-30 comeback club? Of the three rivals, Djokovic’s re-ascendance may have been the most stunning of all. Just three months earlier, in Indian Wells and Miami—tournaments he has won a combined 11 times—Djokovic was utterly adrift in first-round losses to Taro Daniel and Benoit Paire. Physically, Djokovic’s elbow still hurt, and he looked rail-thin and ghost-like; he had none of his old, scrambling gusto from the baseline. Mentally, he seemed to be doing little more than going through the motions.
By the French Open, Djokovic had improved, but he still lost in the quarterfinals to Marco Cecchinato, an Italian who had never won a Grand Slam match before that event. Afterward, Djokovic’s frustration boiled over in the interview room, where he told the press he wasn’t even sure he wanted to play the grass season. He did play, of course, but when Wimbledon began, many predicted a Federer victory, some predicted a Nadal victory, a few even speculated about a Marin Cilic victory. Virtually no one predicted a Djokovic victory. Two weeks later, though, it was Djokovic who knelt down after the last point of his straight-set victory over Kevin Anderson in the final. Disbelief, rather than joy, seemed to be his overriding emotion.
I couldn’t imagine being away from the tour another few months after being away from the tour six months in the last season. So I had to learn the lessons the hard way.
“It was a long journey,” Djokovic said. “I learned how to be patient in this process.”
After undergoing elbow surgery at the start of 2018, Djokovic said that, like countless athletes before him, he came back too fast, and that his expectations for himself were too high.
“I couldn’t imagine being away from the tour another few months after being away from the tour six months in the last season,” he said. “So I had to learn the lessons the hard way.”
By June, he had learned one important lesson: To temper his hopes.
“I didn’t expect to be back in top shape already here in Wimbledon so quickly,” he said after winning his fourth title, and taking his fourth bite of the grass, on Centre Court. “If you asked me after Roland Garros, I would probably maybe doubt that.”
But back in top shape he was. The returns rifled within a foot of the baseline; the surprise backhand winners down the line; the seemingly impossible gets; the clutch serving; the perfectionist’s rage: It was déjà all over again for Djokovic on Centre Court. That included, most memorably, a five-set, two-day win over Rafael Nadal that may have been the best of their 52 encounters.
“He’s playing great,” Nadal said after losing to Djokovic 10-8 in the fifth set, in a match that was the de facto Wimbledon final. “He’s playing at his top level again.”
Djokovic’s return to form wasn’t a surprise to Rafa, nor was it to Paul Annacone, who helped coach Federer back to No. 1 in 2012, when Federer was 31.
“Great players never really lose that top end,” Annacone says. “The struggle seems to me that they have trouble sustaining it once there has been a hiccup in their career.”
“Now that Djokovic has the top end confidence back after winning Wimbledon, the next challenge is the consistency at that level. With Roger and Rafa, not only did they play well, every tournament they played, they were in finals.”
Since Wimbledon, Djokovic has made Annacone look prescient. At the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, Djokovic showed again that his top end is still very much there. In the final, he straight-setted Federer in vintage style, to become the first man to win all nine Masters 1000 events. But one week earlier in Toronto, Djokovic had been far from his best in an early-round loss to 19-year-old Stefanos Tsitsipas
“I just...didn’t feel that comfortable,” Djokovic said of his first week back on hard courts. “I was just kind of trying to find that consistency and that rhythm.”
Which Djokovic will we see at the Open, the virtually unbeatable one from Cincinnati, or the easily frustrated one from Toronto? Over the course of seven matches, we’ll likely get a glimpse of both. But Djokovic’s history at the Open says he’ll find a way to survive his down days: Before missing last year’s tournament, he had made the semifinals or better 10 straight times in New York, winning the title twice. We may not now whether Djokovic is capable of winning a third time until the second week of the tournament, but for now he comes in as a co-favorite with Nadal.
There will be good days and bad days to come, but after Wimbledon, the one thing we do know is that Djokovic’s best is still attainable, and that it’s still as good, or better, than anyone else’s.