Often in life what appears to be improbable is ultimately inevitable. It’s only later, though, that we understand that what seems to make no sense at first is in the end what was meant to be all along.
For much of the early part of his career, Novak Djokovic — the Celiac-ridden guy from an economically straitened family in war-torn Serbia — was a reliable, color-coordinated number three to the elegant, aloof Roger Federer and his intense, visceral rival, Rafael Nadal. But in becoming the oldest man to win the singles title at the US Open Sunday, Sept. 10, the 36-year-old Djokovic has eclipsed them —tying Australia’s Margaret Court for most Grand Slam singles titles (24); returning to the number one ranking for a record 390th week (altogether that would be seven and a half years, folks); setting a new record for most times winning three Slams in a year (four, in 2011, ’15, ’21 and ’23), having the most ATP Masters 1000 titles (39) — the list goes on.
As does a change in perspective on the Serb, proving once again that context drives perception. For Djokovic is ever as he was. A hot-tempered, impatient, single-minded perfectionist — you get the sense that there’s more than a little guilt in his post-victory speeches thanking his team for “putting up with me” —he’s also well-spoken, multilingual, aspirational, civic-minded, generous and, on occasion, funny. The difference now is the wider world has taken notice.
Why has that changed? It helps that the well-marketed Federer, 42. is retired, hawking espresso-makers the way Joe DiMaggio once shilled for Mr. Coffee, and that Nadal, 37. who is rehabbing his surgically repaired hip, only plans to play one more year.
In an odd way, Djokovic’s anti-Covid vaccine mandate stance has made him a more sympathetic figure. The right, of course, sees him erroneously as some kind of libertarian hero when all he was and is is a man who was determined not to add the vaccine to a finely tuned body (never mind that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that you can have more side effects from the illness than from the vaccine).
I also think Djokovic’s devotion to early childhood education, globalism, pacifism, refugee and environmental causes, yoga, journaling, ballet and meditation would lead Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to call him rather woke. No matter: The right sees Djokovic as a martyr to freedom. (My conservative cousin called him “noble.”) But even those on the left who might’ve viewed him as a tennis Typhoid Mary would agree now that the Australian government treated him shabbily in the way it deported him before the 2022 Australian Open.
Still, the irony of his winning the US Open, a tournament sponsored in part by Covid vaccine-maker Moderna, was lost on no one, including newly minted, newly injured New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, no lover of the vaccine. For Rodgers, seeing Djokovic play during the tournament was a bucket-list moment. Former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady also made a pilgrimage to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, to exhort Djokovic to “keep kicking a—.” The usual coterie of celebrities, who with the hoi polloi once cheered for Federer or Nadal instead, seemed to be pulling for him to tie Court’s record and break a whole bunch of others. Two years ago, New York — a tough city with which Djokovic has had a topsy-turvy relationship — embraced him in one of his lowest moments, as he lost his bid for a calendar-year Grand Slam to Daniil Medvedev. Now the city celebrated as he defeated the same opponent in a bid for immortality.
“There is no deodorant like success,” Elizabeth Taylor once tartly observed. But I think the newfound appreciation of Djokovic has to do with more than the notion that everyone loves a winner, never mind the acknowledged G.O.A.T. Ultimately, I think it has a lot to do with time, the great equalizer.
Djokovic has entered what we might call the Queen Elizabeth II phase of his career. Her Majesty had her ups and downs. The Princess Diana years were particularly trying, with the People’s Princess often eclipsing the actual Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth in the headlines if not in hearts. But Diana died, the queen lost the people she was closest to (sister, mother, husband) and she grew old, reminding her subjects that her end would be the end of a chapter for them as well.
Djokovic is no monarch, except in his native Serbia, where he could barely get a word in at a post-US Open rally for the Serbian Davis Cup team, in action with Djokovic this weekend, such was the acclaim from a Belgrade throng. But he is a reminder of the “Big Three” — Federer, Nadal and himself and their “trivalry,” a symbol like the queen of all that has been lost and yet still remains. And like the queen’s passing, when Djokovic retires, it will truly be the end of an era.
Another irony: Even as he has surpassed them, freed himself from their shadow, he remains the keeper of his former rivals’ flame. Yet that flame is a beacon to the past. The “young guns,” as Djokovic calls them, are good but not yet great, with the exception of new rival Carlos Alvaraz — whose aggressive style, Nadal without the neurotic gamesmanship, doesn’t bode well for longevity.
Having lost to Medvedev in the US Open semifinal, Alcaraz said he is listening to his body and forgoing Davis Cup play for Spain this weekend. Pacing himself may not be patriotic, but it is smart. Look at Naomi Osaka, who went from US Open champ to mental health issues, although she did speak with swimming legend Michael Phelps on a panel about mental health at the Open. Tennis, though, has a way of eating its young.
Not Djokoic. Once considered mentally as well as physically fragile, he made himself mentally tough. In this he had unwitting help from Federer and Nadal. They may have overshadowed him at first, but in the end, they, like Serbia itself, have been the making of him, for we know ourselves best in a rival, Aristophanes said, and in adversity.
For now, Djokovic is still tennis’ present, its singular sensation. As former rival Andy Murray, who has known him since their junior days, said, no one is doing what he’s doing. He stands alone, free.
And fans, knowing his time is now short, may finally have come to see him as one whom in the end the gods love.