KEEP BOOING NOVAK DJOKOVIC — THE JOKE’S ON US, AS HE KEEPS WINNING
The soon-to-be tennis G.O.A.T. remains unpopular, but he’s teaching lessons at 36, such as how to maintain one’s body and mind while young Alcaraz suffered cramps and nerves in a French Open breakdown
You don’t have to like Novak Djokovic. He gives us so many reasons not to, after all, in contrast to his Serbian partner in imminent championships, Nikola Jokic, who has become the admired Joker globally while Djokovic plays the Jerko card. Quite unnecessarily, such as when he hit a line judge with a ball and was disqualified from the U.S. Open, he began his latest run at dignified Roland Garros with a political statement.
“Kosovo is at the heart of Serbia,” he scribbled across a TV camera lens, projecting himself into a Balkans conflict between ethnic Serbs and Albanians when most of us just wanted to watch the French Open.
Which only fired up fans who want to boo him anyway, prompting him to fire back the other day. “There are people — there are groups or whatever — that love to boo every single thing you do. That’s something I find disrespectful and I frankly don’t understand that,” he said, which led to more boos.
But as he always does, Djokovic returns to erase our wrath — remember the anti-vaccine stance that led to his Australian deportation? — with intellect and artistry that is leading to a clear-cut legacy. In spite of his reputational self-sabotage, a Friday afternoon in Paris crystalized everything that tennis has wonderfully dramatized for two decades. He’s about to pass Rafael Nadal as the winner of the most men’s Grand Slam tournaments and, soon enough, he’ll pass Serena Williams and Margaret Court as the most decorated majors champion. And with it will come the accolade we must award him, if grudgingly: Greatest Of All Time, tennis division.
This was a benchmark moment, so powerful and telling and teeming with a 36-year-old’s wisdom about psyche and body, if not life itself. Conceivably, his four-set semifinals victory over the Next Big Thing, 20-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, could extend his peak toward 40. With Nadal at home from the clay showcase that defines him — forced to contemplate joining Roger Federer in retirement after a lifetime of crippling injuries — would Djokovic become the last of the Big Three to succumb to mid-life?
For a moment there, we were ready to anoint King Carlos early in the second set. I literally jumped out of my seat, as did millions of viral video watchers who cared more about this slice of transformative magic than the match outcome. With a sprinter’s burst, Alcaraz raced from the net to the baseline in the middle of a furious rally, eyed the ball as it bounced, and, with his back to Djokovic, flicked a behind-the-back forehand that looped the ball just over the net. When it landed inches in bounds, the 22-time majors champ was stunned, as the fans roared, and Alcaraz responded with a grin and a wave of his index finger, as if to say he had conclusively arrived atop the sport. Djokovic was left to raise his arms, in helpless deference, perhaps wondering himself if this would be his comeuppance as Alcaraz went on to win the set and tie the match.
“We went toe-to-toe,” Djokovic said.
But it’s one thing to win the Internet and another to conquer time. What happened next was a lesson for Alcaraz — about conditioning, physiology and taking care of his body — from the master of such things. Know how people made fun of Djokovic and his drastic shift to a gluten-free diet? How he shuns alcohol, monitors his R.E.M. sleep performance and works out and stretches like a fiend? Once upon a time, he was breaking down like Alcaraz, thinking talent would carry him in his youth until a doctor said he had food allergies that were harming his on-court performance. Not until he addressed the problems did the cramping stop and the fatigue subside.
Just as Alcaraz’s thriller-killer shot was ascending atop the trending charts, his body issued a reminder. He is human. His hand cramped, then his legs, in the 87-degree heat. As Djokovic watched over him, having been there once upon a time, a match for the ages now was a match about the ages. Only the old man was looking like the young man, and vice versa. “From that moment onward, it was a different match,” Djokovic said. Having to forfeit a game to receive treatment from a trainer during a non-changeover — a dumb rule, Mr. Commissioner, if tennis had one — Alcaraz won just one more game and lost 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1. He and his team should be consulting with dieticians and doctors any minute now, as Djokovic moves on to a Sunday final against overmatched Casper Ruud and, in all likelihood, his record 23rd Slam.
“I feel for him. I feel sorry. I hope he can recover very soon,” Djokovic said. “It was obvious that he was struggling with his movement. It’s unfortunate for the crowd. It’s unfortunate for the match of this importance for both of us. But that’s sport.
“I told him at the net, he knows how young he is. He has plenty of time ahead of him. He's going to win Roland Garros, I'm sure, many, many times. I have no doubt about it. I mean, he’s an amazing player. Just possesses so (many) qualities. So dynamic. So much power in his shots. Very complete.”
In an honest appraisal, Alcaraz acknowledged his cramps may have been caused by nerves. Better to confront those demons now. “He has been in that situation multiple times. More than me. I’ve never felt the tension that I did in that match,” he said of the cramps, which he said he felt in “every part of my body.” His breakdown was in striking contrast to his commanding victory last September, at the U.S. Open. For Djokovic, the cramps constituted a white flag.
“I can understand the emotions and circumstances that affect you mentally and emotionally. ... Maybe for the first time in his career, he was expected to win,” Djokovic said. “It’s a part of the learning curve.”
The question becomes whether Alcaraz will heed the lesson and reach down into his competitive recesses as Djokovic did and still does. Will he become a legendary fighter like his countryman, Nadal? Or is he another Gen Zer who will make fortunes and leave the game in his early 30s? We haven’t heard much from the last great tennis phenon, Naomi Osaka, who beat Williams in New York, won three more Slams, become the world’s richest female athlete … and faded away, now expecting a baby girl with her boyfriend. Were we spoiled by the Big Three?
Will we actually have to start liking Novak, appreciating him for his genius and forgiving his crusades? Why the Kosovo message? Couldn’t that be made outside the confines of an important tournament, in a sport that needs him to be an entertainer first and an activist on his own time?
“I am against wars, violence and any kind of conflict, as I’ve always stated publicly,” Djokovic said in his native language. “I empathize with all people, but the situation with Kosovo is a precedent in international law. Our most important monasteries are there.”
Not that he’s necessarily finished with politics. “A drama-free Grand Slam, I don’t think it will happen for me,” he said. “This is the least I could have done. I feel the responsibility as a public figure — doesn’t matter in which field — to give support.”
We should be heralding him historically, assuming he wins Sunday, as the oldest French Open champion and the first male player to win all four majors three times. It would be his 11th Slam title of the last 20 contested, and with his early burial of Alcaraz, might he go on a majors roll without Nadal in the way? Are we watching the second coming of Tom Brady, winning trophies into his early 40s? Even Jokic, whose first NBA Finals are being watched by many more people, idolized Djokovic as a teen growing up in a small farm town. He was quick to point out, during a Denver Nuggets media session, that there is only one Joker in Serbia. Comparatively, Jokic is seen as a dancing bear in sneakers, even if his triple-double machinery this postseason is carving him a place in basketball lore.
“I don’t have his (phone) number, to be honest,” Jokic said, “but he is a guy who represents Serbia in a much bigger scene, and he is a Serbian ambassador, and he’s really an idol to the kids in Serbia, not just on the court and the things his foundation is doing. He is the guy who you can look up to, ‘I want to be like him.’ He is doing something great for kids, for Serbia, for everything, so we cannot be compared.”
From Paris, Djokovic returned the love. He’s an avid NBA-watcher, and I remember the night in Los Angeles when he couldn’t wait to visit with Kobe Bryant and pick his motivational brain. “Two years in a row, he’s MVP of regular season,” Djokovic said of Jokic. “Now he’s probably going to be MVP of the playoffs and Finals. He’s incredibly intelligent basketball player. I’m not obviously a basketball expert, but, I mean, I love basketball. I follow it a lot. You know, I have been obviously watching and listening closely to what people have to say about how he plays basketball. It’s so impressive to hear LeBron (James) and, you know, the greats of the game, (Shaquille O’Neal), Magic Johnson, talking about him and praising him. It’s huge.
“NBA league is the biggest and most important basketball league in the world. To be able to be the best player in that league for three years in a row is just stunning. Coming from a small country and a small city in our country, you know, very humble beginnings for him, and he still stayed very modest, very humble, very simple guy, family guy. He loves his horses. You know, he’s into horses, and I find that very funny, but at the same time, I respect it a lot, you know, because he’s sticking to his values, his beliefs, and what he cares about. He doesn’t mind what people think of him. You know, kudos to him. I’m a big fan of him. I hope he wins the Finals.”
Imagine if two Serbs conquer their respective sports in the same week. One talks about his horses. The other talks about nationalism.
One is popular. The other is not. Djokovic was asked about the boos that followed him Friday. “I don’t mind. It’s not the first, probably not the last,” he said. “I’ll just keep winning.”
The joke is on us. Why do boos even matter when the pariah is smarter than the rest?
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.