2. Novak Djokovic: a great effort—what’s next?
A month ago, surely the route for Djokovic following knee surgery was to recover, skip Wimbledon, and point himself towards the Olympics. But then, in a great surprise, a compromised Djokovic opted to play Wimbledon. “My preparation for Wimbledon wasn’t as I would have it normally, usually or commonly to prepare myself,” said Djokovic. “There was hindrance obviously because of the injury. I had to kind of create a hybrid program of training between the rehab, specific exercises for the knee, and the actual pre-Grand Slam fitness training and tennis training.”
Throughout Wimbledon, little on the knee front appeared to trouble Djokovic. Then again, on his way to the final, Djokovic was scarcely challenged. He dropped just two sets and saved considerable energy when ninth-seeded Alex de Minaur withdrew from their quarterfinal match. As Djokovic entered Centre Court to play Alcaraz, it was extremely difficult to get a read on how well he was playing. Soon enough, Alcaraz preempted Djokovic’s hopes for an eighth Wimbledon title. “I don’t think I could have done something much more,” said Djokovic. “Try to pump myself up maybe, yes. Get the crowd involved. That’s what was happening in the third. That got me going a little bit. Yeah, he wasn’t also allowing me to have much of a free points on my serve. He was reading the serve. He was playing with a lot of variety.”
Yet given how negligible Djokovic’s results have been this year, his Wimbledon run was encouraging. It was also, as Djokovic explained, quite revealing. “But I also feel like in a matchup today against best player right now in the world for sure, I mean, other than Jannik, and both of them are the best this year by far, I feel like I’m not at that level,” he said. “In order to really have a chance to I guess beat these guys in Grand Slam latter stages or Olympics, I’m going to have to play much better than I did today and feel much better than I did today.” This won’t be easy. But as Alcaraz said, “I’m still believing that Novak is Superman because what he has done this tournament with a surgery just before a few weeks before the tournament begun. It is amazing. It is unbelievable.”
