Novak Djokovic teases crowd and De Minaur before reaching quarter-finals

The Guardian

5 days ago

Novak Djokovic won his 101st match at Wimbledon and advanced to his eighth consecutive quarter-final at SW19. Not that this was enough for the Serbian all-timer. In an act of grand generosity, he threw away the first set to his challenger Alex de Minaur, granting a rapt Centre Court crowd a rare moment of jeopardy at one of his matches.
The seven-time Wimbledon singles champion was broken three times in the first set by the Australian 12 years his junior. His game was all over the place. In that short window it was possible to imagine a world in which decent, well-rounded challengers such as De Minaur might come into these matches with hope of something other than chastening defeat. It was a nice thought while it lasted.
Everyone at this tennis sanctum knows better than to discount Djokovic, of course, at any point in a match. Even after such a disembodied display in the opening half hour the projected outcome was still success for the 38-year-old, and so it duly proved. The errors sharply declined, as if he had had a strong word with himself internally. The quality of his serve rose with each game to the point that it was the decisive weapon in the third set. The fourth was a dogfight after going 3-0 down but Djokovic got his teeth into the contest and held on until De Minaur submitted. Next up is the Italian No 22 seed Flavio Cobolli.
With Roger Federer watching on and the crowd largely sitting on their hands waiting for a reason to get behind Djokovic there was an air of expectancy as the players emerged. Djokovic, however, then set about instantly letting the air out of the balloon, managing 16 unforced errors in the first set, nearly as many as in his entire third round match against Miomir Kecvanovic. He kept missing his marks, dropping shots into the net and looked slow on the turn. His serve was stinking too, with two double faults in the opening game alone.
For De Minaur, meanwhile, the world looked very much like his oyster. The 11th seed was dynamic, agile and smart. He could keep up with Djokovic's power easily enough but could also read his range, responding to the lobs, drop shots and switches of side sharply. He bossed the longer rallies. His own error count was low and he bounced his way into the second set. The question was whether he could keep it up.
The crowd, to this point, had been most vocal when mocking the errant line calls from the AI system (shots in reply to faulty serves were still being called 'out'). But now there were some stilted attempts to make 'let's go Novak, let's go' a thing. Maybe Djokovic responded to this or maybe he just pulled out the script from his mind palace that reminded him of what he has always done in moments of adversity. He doubled down and turned the screw; the very first point of the second set was a blitz of furious stroke-making and Djokovic earned a break of serve at the first time of asking.
To De Minaur's credit he broke back straight away, but this was an arduous affair of seven deuces. Djokovic then stepped up and broke again. A second huge effort brought De Minaur level again but at 3-3 Djokovic broke him once more, this time to love and with the winning shot a delightful backhand slice across court that left the younger man frozen on his feet.
As Djokovic closed out the second set to level things up the familiar sense of inevitability began to rise. The third set went with serve for 10 games, but the sense of De Minaur having to scramble just to keep up was growing. This was in no small part due to the increasing relentlessness of the Djokovic serve; from a first-serve accuracy of 48% in the first set he was now hitting 80% in the third. At the crucial juncture of four-all and with increasingly little room for error, the pressure finally told on De Minaur. Djokovic won a scintillating rally at 15-30 with a jaw-dropping volley on the slide back across himself, and then De Minaur delivered a gift of a loose forehand to seal the break. A couple more errors from De Minaur and the third set was gone.
Djokovic took his foot off the pedal for a moment and De Minaur stole a break of serve. He held it too, for a service game at least. At 4-2 it was all on the line and De Minaur found his best level for a final time, holding Djokovic to account in the rallies. It wasn't enough, though.
By now Djokovic was hitting so well that he didn't need to find a winner, just gradually, incrementally turn up the pressure in his favour. And so 4-2 became 4-3 then 4-4. In the blink of an eye Djokovic broke again, served out the match, flattered Federer in the stands then was off back to the dressing room. It was almost as if the drama of two hours earlier had never happened.