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For most of his career, Novak Djokovic has been chasing a shadow. And how close he came to catching the ageless king, Roger Federer. How desperate he was to wear his crown. How devastated he is now after a crazy night in Flushing Meadows.
When the world number one pulled a replacement ball out of his pocket after breaking against the run near the end of the first set in his fourth-round match with Spain’s Pablo Carreño Busta, and sent it innocently circling towards the back of the court, his entire career unraveled in slow motion.
A look of horror spread across his face as the ball landed squarely in the throat of an unsuspecting linesman. It did not seem to travel at high speed, but she did not resume her trajectory and, when struck, slid to the ground, coughing loudly and in anguish. The replay of Djokovic moving toward her like a man drowning in quicksand sent two completely different messages: he was obviously worried that he had hurt her; but he also knew that it had damaged his career, perhaps irreparably. His pursuit of the shadow had stalled disastrously.
This, surely, would never have happened to Federer. Like many players, the “Swiss gentleman,” as former Novak coach Boris Becker calls him, has indeed occasionally thrown a ball in frustration. But none had landed on a fan. The ball wouldn’t be so impertinent. It was unfortunate for Djokovic that an innocent official got in his way.
What happened then compounded his dilemma. He begged the officials for clemency for a full ten minutes. Palms up, he managed a weak smile, jovially trying to get the steam out of the crisis, as a schoolboy would when caught smoking behind the bike shed. It wasn’t meant to hurt. But Djokovic was struggling with the obvious: He was about to be kicked out of the 2020 US Open.
This was a hit that was almost universally the favorite to win for the fourth time in the absence of Federer and defending champion Rafael Nadal. This was the blow that would take him to 18 majors, one behind the 34-year-old Spaniard, two behind the 39-year-old Swiss. There were only children in his path and he was playing superbly.
It got worse. Alerted to his fate, Djokovic zipped up his bag and walked in silent fury from Arthur Ashe Court, so often the scene of his triumphs. But instead of heading to the mandatory press conference, where he would surely have faced a barrage of tough questions, he picked up his clothes, went to the parking lot, and was driven back to his rented house. Authority at this time meant nothing to him. He was indulging in exceptionalism.
You probably knew at the time that you would lose $ 250,000 in prize money and all your ranking points, as well as a great deal of dignity. At home, or perhaps on the road, he composed an apology and posted it on Instagram, in English for his critics and in Serbian for his bewildered compatriots. It was exaggerated but strangely unconvincing.
The incident had left him “sad and empty,” he said. He was very sorry for causing the woman so much stress. “So involuntary. Very bad, ”he wrote.
And then the self-justification and the plea for understanding: “As for the disqualification, I need to go back inside myself and work on my disappointment and turn all this into a lesson for my growth and evolution as a player and a human being.”
No. What he had to do was go back to the scene of the crime and admit it. Tim Henman, who was disqualified for a similar incident at Wimbledon in 1995 when he accidentally struck a dancer, was right when he said: “You should have faced it and apologized and accepted that you made a mistake. But in essence, running away from it is just going to last even longer. “
When Djokovic’s car pulled out of the parking lot, he was putting self-preservation above his obligations. It has previous. In the back of his mind, he was surely aware of it. In 2016, he was reprimanded for bouncing his racket in frustration, narrowly missing a linesman at Roland Garros. A few months later, at the ATP World Tour Finals in London, he threw a ball into the crowd. No one was injured at any time except Djokovic.
He gravely objected to questions from the British about his complacent behavior. It was so likely that it would snow inside the Otwo Arena, he joked, as his ball hit and injured a spectator. No joke now for @DjokerNole as he is known by his 8.7 million followers on Twitter.
Many of them will fall on their critics, outraged that their hero’s integrity is being questioned. He has given tennis in that part of the world pride and joy since he led Serbia to Davis Cup glory in 2009. The blows flowed for him from then on and here he was, in 2020, at age 33, the best player in the world, without a doubt.
Djokovic is not a bad man, but he is occasionally intemperate and goofy. He has raised many millions for Covid-19 sufferers in the Balkans, is generous with his time, and is often thoughtful and insightful as well as fun. But he’s also motivated, and his ambition has sometimes twisted his judgment.
While progressing smoothly through the draw, he was also assembling a players association that he knew would seriously disrupt the sport in the midst of a pandemic, in the middle of a slam, and just eight months into the life of a new administration at ATP. Many players agree with him that they need independent representation. However, many of them have questioned their opportunity and some wonder about their motives. Was he trying to get hold of tennis? It no longer seems.
Djokovic gives the appearance of leadership, but he doesn’t always deliver. His well-meaning but doomed Balkan Exhibition Tour, during and after which he and other players, as well as his wife, tested positive for coronavirus, should have been a moment of awakening for his fans.
Ultimately, he does not reveal himself as a leader, but as a self-absorbed librewheeler. It will take a great deal of your supposed humility and spiritual awareness to repair the damage of a foolish night.
The mere tennis consequences of this are easier to understand. When Federer failed to capitalize on two match points in the Wimbledon final last year to allow Djokovic to pass to 16 majors, four behind his own record of 20, he was crushed. This was the true face of their rivalry, undermining the smiles of the public. Djokovic added another major in Melbourne and launched a wave of victories that reminded everyone of the sequence of 41 he put together in 2011.
Covid struck and the Tour was suspended. Federer took the opportunity to have a second knee operation and withdrew from the season. Nadal stayed away, wary of the virus and more focused on the French Open. Djokovic knew that if he stayed in shape he could regain valuable ground for both of them. As Alexander Zverev pointed out, Djokovic was the only grand slam winner left on a weakened field. How silly was Sunday night.
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