After a 30-shot rally from the back of the court, in the second set against Alex de Minaur in the Wimbledon round-of-16 clash, he slumped to his chair, removed his shirt, put his hand below the chest, shut his eyes, inhaled deeply, held the breath and exhaled incrementally. In the first-round match, he had said he required magic pills to subdue stomach cramps. Here he resorted to asthmatic drills.
“I was just trying to manage my breathing,” Djokovic revealed later. “After 30-shot rallies from the back of the court, you obviously need a breather and you don’t have much time. That was the case,” the Serb said.
A practitioner of conscious breathing, he has spoken elaborately about how breathing techniques have helped him sustain focus in the game. “The number one thing is to learn how to consciously breathe. It may sound weird as we all know how to breathe but I think conscious breathing, really learning how to master that skill, helps with better sleep, better recovery, more presence in the moment. Breathing always centres you,” he had once said.
In an interview to Vice, he has delved deeper: “I do [meditation and yoga] out of a need to have an optimal state of mind and peace and calm, and at the same time happiness and joy. Everybody has their ways to reach that state of consciousness where you’re in a good mood and you feel love towards yourself, towards people around you, towards the planet. So I try to be aligned with this kind of approach and mindset in life.”
It was one of those games where the 38-year-old had to dig deep into the reservoirs of his vast experience. He was most appalling in his first-set loss (6-1), before he fought back with characteristic gusto. His serves were horrible and movements were jerky. In the commentary box, John McEnroe would quip: “If he does this for two more sets, he’ll quit on the spot. It is incredible to see him play like this.”
Later, Djokovic too admitted that he was far from his imperious best. “To be honest, I’m still trying to process the whole match and what happened. It wasn’t a great start for me. He broke my serve three times in the first set. We had very windy and swirly conditions. He was just managing the play better and I didn’t have many solutions. I kind of reset myself in the second set,” he said.
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