Embracing No. 82
Djokovic shakes off some rust in Paris
PARIS – Roger Federer is about to enter the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Rafael Nadal is busy promoting the documentary on his now-completed career that is soon to be released worldwide.
But Novak Djokovic plays on, still making new tennis (and dance) memories. He is limiting his appearances now, picking his spots with care at age 39, and has been even more of a part timer than he planned in 2026 because of a shoulder injury that kept him in Greece and beyond instead of on tour.
But the Djoker is still a serious threat, still capable of rising to an occasion, like an opening-night match at Roland Garros against a limited but explosive young Frenchman whose name -- Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard -- is a lot longer than many of the points he plays.
GMP (let’s go with the shorthand) is 22, which means he had not yet set foot on planet earth when Djokovic won his first ATP points. Neither had Dino Prizmic, the 20-year-old Croatian who defeated Djokovic in the opening round in Rome this month in what turned out to be Djokovic’s only claycourt match before the French Open.
Never in Djokovic’s epic career had he arrived at Roland Garros without a clay-court victory that same season. But he has one now after gathering strength and precision through a patchy 5-7, 7-5, 6-1, 6-4 defeat of GMP. This is only Djokovic’s fourth tournament of the year, and I asked him very late on Sunday night how tough it was to take flight with so little runway.
“Well, it is,” he answered. “It’s not an ideal strategy coming into Roland Garros with one match on clay. That was not part of the plan, but it was a situation that I had to accept with the circumstances of being injured. It is what it is. I got myself prepared for Paris, and I was always planning to come and try my best, try and get as far as I can in the tournament. Let’s see. The body is feeling all right for now and of course I have to get the game together and hopefully that will happen as I progress.”
This is becoming a mantra, and he has managed it on other surfaces, winning Wimbledon seven times, often without a grasscourt tuneup, and reaching the Australian Open final this year, upsetting Jannik Sinner along the way, without competing for more than two months. But as the years go by and the youngsters grow up it only gets harder to sustain this sort of low-volume, high-reward approach.
The rub and opportunity in Paris this year is that so many of the best youngsters are missing because of injury: two-time French Open champion Carlos Alcaraz, Lorenzo Musetti, Jack Draper, Holger Rune, Sebastian Korda and France’s best new hope Arthur Fils, who was watching from the stands as his buddy GMP won the opening set and pushed Djokovic hard in the second before fading.
Sinner, in the other half of the draw, is the overwhelming and rightful favorite for the title having swept all before him since finding his groove again in March in the California desert. On clay, he beat Alcaraz to win Monte Carlo and then took Madrid and Rome: becoming the first man since Nadal in 2010 to win all three in the same season. Nadal went on to win another French Open that year, too, restoring order to the universe after being defeated in 2009 by Robin Soderling.
That was Nadal’s first loss at Roland Garros, one of the biggest upsets in tennis history, and a reminder that nothing is preordained in sports. Sinner still has to do the work, stay in the moment, and triumph over not only the field, which can swing away with very little to lose, but over whatever mental clutter still lingers from squandering three championship points against Alcaraz in last year’s final.
It’s unseasonably hot this week in Paris – not Sinner’s ideal weather – but he is playing his opener on Tuesday against French wildcard Clément Tabur in the comparative cool of the night session, Given the dearth of established star power in his half of the draw, Sinner may keep receiving assignments to the night sessions while the commoners slap on the sunscreen and ask for extra ice towels.
But if –a word that Nadal did not embrace – Sinner does falter and if Djokovic were to grind his way back into better form in a hurry, it is improbable but not unthinkable that the aging lion, or better yet the aging wolf (Djokovic’s spirit animal), could find an opening and pounce. He could face a rematch with the dangerous Prizmic in round three or a first match with Brazilian phenom Joao Fonseca. But with Stan Wawrinka’s loss on Monday, Djokovic is the only man left in the field who has won the French Open, and he has done so three times, which should count double considering that he played in Nadal’s era.
“I thought he looked pretty good to be honest,” said John McEnroe when we chatted in the staircase after Sunday’s opener. “What’s clear is that the guy he was playing is exactly the kind of guy you don’t want to face in the first round of a major.”
Djokovic would agree. At 6-foot-8 and 226 pounds, GMP can thunder a serve like few players in history, and his flat wide delivery in the ad court was the most devastating shot in the match, punishing Djokovic even when he was leaning the right way.
Serving for the first set at 6-5, GMP never needed to hit a second serve and closed it out with two aces. Deep into the second set, GMP was still saving break points with bolts from on high against a man who has elevated the return to an art form. At 5-6, GMP changed up and sliced an ace down the middle in the ad court, receiving an irony-free thumbs up from the mystified Djokovic.
But GMP, coached by former big server Greg Rusedski, is for now an intriguing project, not a world-beater. Djokovic would soon find a way through: producing a trademark blocked backhand return off a huge first serve down the T. It landed in what should have been GMP’s backhand corner, but the Frenchman, whose movement and single-handed backhand are not the equals of his serve, knew he needed something more and ran around to rip a forehand. He was now officially out of position and Djokovic made him pay by making him run, not GMP’s flow state. Djokovic did the same on the final point of the set, drawing him forward with a backhand drop shot that GMP whipped just wide.
It was one set apiece and rather soon, with GMP cramping and misfiring, it was match point. GMP pounded a first serve. Djokovic fast-twitched the return deep. GMP took command of the point but Djokovic played a trump card: a running full-cut forehand crosscourt winner.
He danced on his way to the net: not his traditional victory celebration. And he danced some more after the handshake.
“It was very challenging obviously mentally for me to hold my nerves in the important moments,” Djokovic said. “First set zero chance really on his serve. It’s one of the most tremendous serves in terms of precision and speed that I have ever faced in my career so good also to him and good luck. Nobody wants him in the draw to be honest, and if he puts certain things together he can have a really bright future. Obviously playing a French player on center court Roland Garros it’s never so easy. Obviously the crowd gets into it and then you feel the pressure even more, but all in all it was a good match to be part of. Three hours. Just what the doctor ordered at age 39 and here we go!”
He has added his close friend and longtime Davis Cup teammate Viktor Troicki to his coaching team. Troicki left the staff of younger Serbian pro Miomir Kecmanovic, who was surprised and wounded by the move, as he made clear to the Serbian media outlet Sportklub.
Djokovic said he had spoken with Kecmanovic. “How he accepted it, and what it is between him and Viktor, it’s not my business,” Djokovic said in his Serbian news conference on Sunday.
He called Troicki one of the “closer people I have in my life” and said he “simply didn’t want to bring in someone unfamiliar” at this stage.
How long this stage will last remains intriguingly unclear, but it seems unlikely that Djokovic would poach Troicki or that Troicki would jump the good ship Kecmanovic for no more than a last hurrah.
At 39, Nadal already was retired. At 39, Federer was diminished by knee problems that would ultimately end his career. But Djokovic can still go a few places they have not traveled, and his appearance on Sunday was his record 82d in singles in a major tournament, breaking his tie with Federer and Feliciano Lopez.
That number clearly does not matter as much to him as 24, but it does not seem that he is chasing history with the same relentless intent at this stage. It seems more about the sensations, not just for him but for his circle, and as he spoke with us late night in Paris, his wife Jelena was taking photos of the scene from the hallway while his children Stefan and Tara listened intently from close range.
They already had run onto the clay to embrace their father after the victory. Next dusty challenge for Team Djokovic on the Philippe Chatrier Court: Valentin Royer, another unseeded Frenchman, this one without a 230-kilometer first serve.
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P.S. I am at Roland Garros for the duration and am happy to sign my books for those who can track me down. The paperback English edition of THE WARRIOR, my biography of Nadal, has just published in the United Kingdom and the timing seems right. Roland Garros is in full swing, and Nadal’s documentary, in which I make a cameo, is releasing this week. I've written a new afterword for this UK edition, and you can order it through Hachette or Waterstones or any other bookseller you prefer. There is, of course, a lot of Djokovic in it.
Merci for being here everyone!
It’s hard not to root for the “wolf” with his many esoteric interests that contrast so vividly with his Serbian nationalism. He’s become more fascinating as he’s gotten older. I think he could outwit anyone on the right night to win again but possibly his body won’t hold up. As the end approaches each match feels like a last stand. It’s elegiac. One thing for sure; he was born for the stage of tennis. It’s impossible not to watch him now.
Chris, quite reasonably as usual, you were cautiously circumspect in your outlook for Djokovic's chances in Paris. I will not be so reasonable and will ask, "What if?" What if the Djoker, this sly old dog who can never be counted out, wins both Paris AND Wimbledon for a total of 26 majors?!! The conventional piety among my more knowledgeable tennis friends was that Novak would pull out of Paris citing injury to go practice on grass for the Wimbledon that is his best shot for another major. Of course he could still do that or even just tank to get out of jail in France. But you know me, I'm an impractical fool and a dreamer, and I'm praying to all my pre-Islamic 350 idols that Novak will win all the marbles in both France and England.