Wimbledon Final: The Sweet Taste of Success

The 2011 version of Wimbledon turned out to be all about players managing to live out their dreams. On Saturday, it was 21-year old Czech Petra Kvitova becoming the Ladies champion and a first-time slam winner. On Sunday, it was all about Serbia's Novak Djokovic.



Two days after advancing to his first SW19 final to assure himself of becoming the twenty-fifth man to reach #1 in the ATP singles rankings, the 24-year old still had some unfinished business to take care. Sure, he stepped onto Centre Court to play the Gentleman's final while sporting the best record in tennis (47-1), more titles (7) than anyone, and a ridiculously brilliant season mark (9-1) against his fellow members of the Top 4 players in the world. But he still had something more to prove. That one loss on his '11 ledger came in the semis in Paris against Roger Federer, a loss which prevented him from tying John McEnroe's record 42-match season-opening winning streak and, more importantly, face off with Rafael Nadal in the Roland Garros final. Djokovic came into today's Wimbledon final with a 4-0 record against the Spaniard in finals this year but, coupled with the loss to Federer, his 0-5 record against Nadal in slams continued to leave an impression that maybe the Serb STILL wasn't quite ready to be declared "the best in the world." Not if he couldn't get the job done in best-of-five battles decided by stamina and grit on the game's grandest stages. While ten-time slam champ Nadal was fated to fall to #2 in the rankings on Monday no matter the outcome of the final, the fact remained that if he won his twenty-first straight Wimbledon match to defend his title he would be able to say he'd claimed five of the last six slams... and it what universe would THAT not make HIM the world's best?

Djokovic wanted his first Wimbledon title to erase those lingering doubts. And he wanted it badly.

Plus, he'd been dreaming about this moment since he was 4. And, numbers aside, in the end, that was the most important thing. Tennis has changed his and his family's life, and the memory of watching his first tournament as a child -- naturally, it took place on the lawns of the All-England Club -- will forever hold a special place in Djokovic's heart. It was the seed that was planted that made him start down the road to what he's become. It's been a hard journey, and all the work is making the success he's experiencing now all the more delicious.

Right from the start today, Djokovic was ready. In Game #1, he defied Nadal's 15/30 lead to hold, and the pair spent the rest of the set routinely locking away their service games. Through nine games, neither had faced a break point. But with Nadal serving down 5-4, with a better than 90% 1st Serve percentage (and he was winning around 80% of those serves), the Spaniard suddenly found himself down set point when Djokovic got the first break point chance of the match. When Nadal sent a forehand wide, Djokovic had managed to jump in and strike with rattler-like quickness, seizing the set at 6-4. As the Serb punched the air and shouted toward his family in the stands, Nadal must have realized what Federer has so often felt when the Spaniard has done similar things to the former Swiss #1 in recent slam finals.

Of course, Djokovic has been doing this sort of thing for more than seven months. Ask Jo-Wilfried Tsonga about the 1st set of this Wimbledon's semifinal, or Andy Murray about that deciding set in the Rome semi. Aside from that match against Federer in Paris, no player has been as mentally tough in 2011 as Djokovic has been each and every time he's stepped onto the court since he bolstered his fitness with a gluten-free diet and his confidence while leading Serbia to it's first Davis Cup title last December, which served as a prelude to his Australian Open crown in January. He carried that confidence in the 2nd set against Nadal, using his tremendous foot speed to get to the Spaniard's drop shot, he hit behind Nadal at the net to garner a break for a 2-0 lead. Racing through the stanza without facing a break point, while converting both of his own on Nadal's serve, he won 6-1 in thirty-three minutes.

A letdown came in the 3rd, though. In the second game, Djokovic had his first double-fault, and soon Nadal held his first break point of the match. A Djokovic error put him behind 2-0, and he was never able to climb out of the hole in what remained of the set. As the pressure seemed to be getting to the Serb, the Spaniard was suddenly invigorated. Djokovic double-faulted on break point to fall behind 5-1, and lost the set 6-1.

But just as Kvitova had risen to the occasion in the most important section of the women's final against Maria Sharapova, Djokovic did so here. He broke Nadal to go up 2-0. After Nadal got the break back in the next game, courtesy of a chip return that dribbled over the net cord, Djokovic seized upon the next big opportunity given to him five games later. Down 3-4, Nadal hit his first double-fault of the match on the first point. Two points later, Djokovic had triple break point. He broke the defending champion at the end of a long rally to take a 5-3 lead and get the chance to serve for the championship. Two points from the match, Djokovic served-and-volleyed his way to a match point. After Nadal's backhand sailed long, Djokovic dropped his racket and immediately collapsed onto his back with a 6-4/6-1/1-6/6-3 victory.



On his way back to his chair, Djokovic paused to pick a few blades of grass from the Centre Court turf, then stuffed them into his mouth and chewed. Whether such an item fits into his new diet is questionable... but I'm betting his nutritionist won't get on him too much about it. After twenty years of effort, it must have tasted like icing on the cake.

Or maybe it just tasted like sweet success.

While they CAN put a roof on Centre Court, they apparently STILL can't get a microphone (or two) that works for a post-match interview, as the BBC's Sue Barker had a difficult time finding a working instrument that would relay the new Wimbledon champion's words to both the people watching on television AND the fans in the stands. But it didn't really matter... Djokovic, after a "couple of good days in the office," shows that just about anything is possible. Even managing to rise above not one, but two, players in the Greatest of All Time" debate.

But if Nadal and Federer are THAT, what is Djokovic? The "Trivalry" between the trio has developed an odd dynamic: Nadal dominates Federer, who manages to trip up Djokovic, who has now come to dominate Nadal this season. It's that last part of the equation that truly puts what the Serb has been doing into tremendous focus, though. So far in '11, against the player generally acknowledged as the best in the world just a few months ago, he's 2-0 on hard court, 2-0 on clay and now 1-0 on grass. After today's match, Nadal made a comment about Djokovic being the best player "at the moment." I don't think he was attempting to send any sort of veiled message, but just the notion that he might have been sets up the next obstacle that the Serb has to hurdle: that his domination can extend over the course of an entire season.

After Djokovic is through celebrating long and heartily with his Serbian cohorts, it'll be time to get back to serious business. Essentially, he's half-way to putting together the best, non-Grand Slam winning, season in men's tennis history. He's got two slams in hand, and he was already arguably the best hard court player in the world even before this year. Winning the Open in September would take his reputation to an even higher level. With eight titles, he's half-way to matching Guillermo Vilas' '77 mark of sixteen. With a 27-match hard court winning streak dating back to last season, he's nearly half-way to Federer's 2005-06 record of 56 in a row, as well. At 48-1 for the season, he's currently on pace to better McEnroe's modern day record for best winning percentage over the course on an ATP season (.965 in his 82-3 1984 campaign). All of that is still quite a ways away, but Djokovic has done nothing this year to make anyone think he CAN'T pull off at least a few, if not all, of those accomplishments. And just that it can even be a topic of debate proves that the Serb has managed to lift himself into the rarified air that was formerly only breathed by a two-man contingent.

No longer categorized as the "Third Man," Djokovic is now the ATP's LEADING man... and his "career role" might still be in his future.



=NOTES=
Meanwhile, if you managed to come back around to hear the very end of NBC's six-hour Wimbledon telecast today -- and I can't imagine many did -- then you have heard Ted Robinson drop the (not exactly bombshell, but still eyebrow-raising) news that the network's 43-year association with the tournament has now officially come to an end. If it hasn't happened already, an announcement seems to be forthcoming that ESPN has bought the rights for the ENTIRE tournament, including the singles finals. Unless live coverage is moved or simulcast on ABC (where some taped weekend action looks to be slated to air), it means starting next year the Wimbledon finals won't be on over-the-air TV for the first time since the 1960s. Of course, ESPN is so pervasion, and has swiped away so many other big-time sporting events, it really doesn't seem like the milestone change that it probably SHOULD be.

Of course, I've sort of been hoping that the Comcast purchase of NBC might lead to this moment (I haven't heard anything about the network's Roland Garros coverage, which has always been the worse of the two, treated like an ugly duckling for as long as I can remember). With the contract with the tournament up, I wondered whether Comcast migth cut its losses and move on, considering the sport's TV numbers aren't what they used to be. But, with Comcast's plan to pump up sports channel Versus, it seems as if the entire situation actually spurred competing cable/network sports entities -- ESPN and Fox -- to make a big run at Wimbledon, largely in order to prevent the soon-to-be-renamed Versus from becoming an even bigger player in sports television acquisitions than it is already expected to become according to Comcast's master plan. I'm glad Fox didn't get Wimbledon. I think that could have been a disaster. While ESPN has its "issues," it knows how to cover a big event, and make it seem even bigger. Of course, that hasn't always translated when it comes to tennis. But the network's U.S. Open coverage has been generally great, so with more at stake, maybe the sometimes-gaping holes in the Wimbledon coverage will be closed in the near future.

Hey, hope should always spring eternal, right?

The news that this tournament is leaving NBC isn't neary as jarring as when HBO stopped telecasting Wimbledon years ago, but it's surely the end of a very long tradition. "Breakfast at Wimbledon," with the first live coverage of the men's final back in 1979, revolutionized tennis-on-TV in America. Over the decades, NBC's tennis production has become shoddy (out with Bud Collins and in with Jimmy Roberts? Really?) and sometimes insulting (the tape-delayed, time-zone scrambling coverage of the SF in recent years, all designed to prevent a pre-emption of the late, worthless hours of the "Today" show), but I know I'll never forget the "good old days" when NBC helped make the sport what it used to be in the U.S. and, in truth, played a huge part in me becoming a tennis fan in the first place. The network's groundbreaking and always-anticipated (boy, did that change over the years) Wimbledon coverage is why this became my favorite slam, and probably plays a large part in why pretty much all of my "most-favored" players -- from Becker to Novotna to Dokic and, now, even Kvitova -- just so happen to have special links to SW19. As Djokovic said today about himself, Wimbledon tennis was the first tennis that I, too, ever watched.

With the finals now in its grasp, ESPN2 will at least be able to call the shots for North American coverage. Allowing NBC to essentially direct ESPN2's broadcast by "embargoing" matches has done nothing but help erode the sport's potential U.S. fan base in recent years. Hopefully, John McEnroe will make the jump from NBC to ESPN2 next year (he's already on board for U.S. Open duties). As with Mary Carillo, American tennis coverage just isn't quite the same without him in the mix. Now, if the network can just get a few more of its studio highlight show hosts to not act as if they should be patted on the back for actually pronouncing a women's tennis player's name correctly and/or adequately feigning interest in or knowledge of the sport they're talking about, maybe it'll be a "good" beginning for a new era in Wimbledon coverage.

Oh, well. Times change, and this is a long-overdue course correction, at that. But, still. One can't help but have a bit of a heavy heart when something that you associated with your youth is suddenly gone. "Breakfast" might ultimately be better at this time next year, but it'll never be the same, either. There's just something sad about that.



*CAREER SLAM FINALS - ACTIVE*
23...Roger Federer (16-7)
13...RAFAEL NADAL (10-3)
5...NOVAK DJOKOVIC (3-2)
5...Andy Roddick (1-4)
4...Lleyton Hewitt (2-2)

*ATP #1-RANKED PLAYERS - BY WEEKS*
[as of July 4]
286...Pete Sampras
285...Roger Federer *
270...Ivan Lendl
268...Jimmy Connors
170...John McEnroe
109...Bjorn Borg
101...Andre Agassi
101...Rafael Nadal *
80...Lleyton Hewitt
72...Stefan Edberg
58...Jim Courier
43...Gustavo Kuerten
40...Ilie Nastase
20...Mats Wilander
13...Andy Roddick *
12...Boris Becker
9...Marat Safin
8...Juan Carlos Ferrero *
8...John Newcombe
6...Yevgeny Kafelnikov
6...Thomas Muster
6...Marcelo Rios
2...Carlos Moya
1...NOVAK DJOKOVIC *
1...Patrick Rafter
--
* - active

*ATP DOUBLES TITLES*
[Slams, Teams, Open era]
11...BOB BRYAN & MIKE BRYAN, 2003-11
11...Todd Woodbridge & Mark Woodforde, 1992-00
[All-time Slams, Teams, AO-RG-WI-US]
12...John Newcombe & Tony Roche, 1965-76 [4-2-5-1]
11...BOB BRYAN & MIKE BRYAN, 2003-11 [5-1-2-3]
11...Todd Woodbridge & Mark Woodforde, 1992-00 [2-1-6-2]
[Career ATP, individual]
83...Todd Woodbridge
78...John McEnroe
78...Tom Okker
75...MIKE BRYAN
74...Frew McMillan
73...BOB BRYAN
73...Daniel Nestor
[Career ATP, teams]
73...BOB BRYAN & MIKE BRYAN
61...Todd Woodbridge & Mark Woodforde
57...Peter Fleming & John McEnroe
57...Bob Hewitt & Frew McMillan

*ATP CAREER SLAM TITLES - ACTIVE*
[Singles/Doubles-Mixed]
18...BOB BRYAN [0/18]
16...Roger Federer [16/0]
14...Leander Paes [0/14]
13...MIKE BRYAN [0/13]
10...Rafael Nadal [10/0]
8...Max Mirnyi [0/8]
8...Daniel Nestor [0/8]
7...Nenad Zimonjic [0/7]

*CAREER SLAM SINGLES FINALS - MEN*
23...Roger Federer *
19...Ivan Lendl
18...Pete Sampras
17...Rod Laver
16...Bjorn Borg
16...Ken Rosewall
15...Andre Agassi
15...Jimmy Connors
15...Roy Emerson
14...Bill Tilden
13...Rafael Nadal *
--
* - active




All for now.

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