Djokovic Outlasts Del Potro in Epic Wimbledon Semifinal By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY Published: July 5, 2013 WIMBLEDON, England — In an age of Twitter and text messages, of instant gratification and endangered attention spans, men’s tennis continues — despite all the ferocious currents to the contrary — to excel at long form. The marathon men were at it again Friday, this time on Centre Court at Wimbledon in the sunlight, where yet another set of powerful, evenly matched rivals relentlessly and good-naturedly sent each other scrambling, lunging, sprawling to every straight line and corner of the most famous patch of grass in the game. “It was one of the best matches I have been a part of; one of the most exciting, definitely,” said the eventual winner, Novak Djokovic. That was quite a statement considering how many keepsake matches Djokovic has lived, laughed and suffered through in recent years. The exceptional has become routine at the Grand Slam tournaments, and Djokovic has already played two epics this year: his terrific five-set victory over Stanislas Wawrinka in the fourth round of the Australian Open, and the clay-court masterpiece of a French Open semifinal that ended with Rafael Nadal exulting and Djokovic ruing what might have been. Friday’s 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 6-3 victory over Juan Martín del Potro of Argentina now rightfully joins the club. At 4 hours 43 minutes, it was the longest semifinal in the history of Wimbledon, which is the oldest tournament in the game, and yet it so rarely dragged, so rarely gave the predominantly British fans reason to crave resolution even if their own Andy Murray was being delayed from taking the court because of all this grit and brilliance. They do have world-class reach, del Potro and Djokovic. Del Potro is 6 feet 6 inches and can produce astounding and precisely controlled power from the corners, particularly on his forehand. One of his wonder-thunder-strokes late in the fourth set was measured at 113 miles an hour and left Djokovic staring at the grassy spot where it had just landed in disbelief. But Djokovic, the game’s elastic man, repeatedly returned the favor, stretching into splits in the backcourt and on his way forward to reboot rally after rally. Asked if he had been surprised, del Potro sounded philosophical. “Sometimes, yes, but I know him,” he said. “He play here like clay courts or hard courts. That’s one of the reasons he is the number one of the world. He can play very good tennis on all surfaces. I need to hit harder my forehands the next time.” That is a frightening prospect. “It was a really high-level match during four hours, hitting so hard the ball,” del Potro said, looking happier than one might have expected. “I think it was unbelievable to watch, but of course I’m sad because I was so close.” In truth, he was and he was not. Yes, del Potro played and still lost a great first set when Djokovic made a sudden leap to a higher plateau and broke him at 5-6. Yes, del Potro had chances to take command of the third set before losing it in a tiebreaker. And yes, above all, del Potro boldly saved two match points in the fourth-set tiebreaker to extend the match — quite appropriately — into a fifth set. But Djokovic, one of the sport’s great managers of risk and reward, was never anywhere near the brink of defeat, and he will now play Murray in Sunday’s Wimbledon final after Murray absorbed all the force of Jerzy Janowicz’s serve and personality to win in four sets. Murray missed the French Open with a back injury, but he and Djokovic will have played in three straight finals in the Grand Slam tournaments in which they both participated: the 2012 United States Open and this year’s Australian Open and Wimbledon. Del Potro, still trying to get back to a major final after winning the 2009 United States Open, will continue waiting. “In the end, I think he played unbelievable,” del Potro said of Djokovic. “I played my best tennis ever on grass court for a long time, but it was not enough.” It is not as if the eighth-seeded del Potro did not know how to beat Djokovic on grass. He did it at the All England Club just last year, in the bronze-medal match at the Olympics, a best-of-three-set affair that contained all the emotional heft of a best-of-five. Del Potro then beat Djokovic again in the semifinals of the prestigious hardcourt event in Indian Wells in March. But those victories remain exceptions. Djokovic has won 9 of their 12 matches and all four of their Grand Slam matches. Djokovic has an edge in mobility, even if del Potro moved remarkably well for man his size on Friday, and even better for a man who had hyperextended his left knee twice in earlier rounds. Djokovic has an edge in versatility, even if del Potro can do plenty of damage from disparate zones. Though del Potro has an edge in raw, flat power, Djokovic believed he had the edge on Friday in staying power. “I have lost a long match in the French Open just a few weeks ago,” Djokovic said. “You can’t win all the matches. But I know that when we get to the fifth set, when I play a top player at the later stages of a major event especially, this is where your physical strength but also mental ability to stay tough can decide the winner of that match. “So, yes, I was disappointed that I didn’t finish the match before in fourth set. But knowing that I have a chance, more chance of staying longer in the rally with him, and just as the match goes on I felt like physically I’m fit and I can go a long way. So that’s something that gave me that mental, probably, advantage.” The match became the longest Wimbledon semifinal very early in the fifth set, surpassing the 1989 semifinal here between Boris Becker and Ivan Lendl that lasted a minute over four hours. Djokovic said Friday’s semifinal belonged high on his personal short list, although the 2012 Australian Open final in which he beat Nadal in a nearly six-hour match remained a solid No. 1. Both Becker and Lendl were at Wimbledon on Friday, Becker as a BBC commentator and Lendl as Murray’s coach. But for all their power and attention to fitness and detail, Becker and Lendl never played points as relentlessly physical as these. And though this was attacking baseline tennis on the same court that was once a secular temple to the serve-and-volley style, it was hardly lacking in variety or net play. Djokovic came to net 63 times and won 49 of those points; del Potro came to net 37 times and won 25. But the real showcase moments came on or behind the increasingly worn baselines, where del Potro managed to push Djokovic back farther than most mortals and where Djokovic launched himself into dives worthy of a goalkeeper or slipped hard as he tried to change direction. A less flexible man might not have gotten back up. It was spectacular. It was grueling, but it was also surprisingly jaunty on occasion, with del Potro — lighter in spirit if not on his feet — producing a majority of the comedy. He stopped to chat with the fans in the front row after his defensive sprints left him within conversational range, and he even bantered with Djokovic when another sprint led him to Djokovic’s side of the net. Djokovic said that he and the 24-year-old del Potro had long been friendly. “I have lots of respect for him; he’s a very nice guy off the court,” Djokovic said. “It’s great, you know. The crowd enjoyed it so much. Yeah, he had some funny reaction. But look, in the end of the day, we’re playing this sport. Of course, you want to win when you’re on the court, but you try to enjoy, you try to have fun. Sometimes that’s also helping you to kind of release that stress because it’s so much tension going on back and forth.” On Friday, there were so many magnificent strokes going back and forth, too. But then happily for long-form tennis fans, that is absolutely nothing new. This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: July 5, 2013 Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the player who lost to Andy Murray. He is Jerzy Janowicz, not Jery Janowicz. An earlier version of this article also misstated the score of Novak Djokovic’s victory. It was 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 6-3, not 7-5, 4-5, 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (6-8).
Posted on: Sat, 06 Jul 2013 05:58:54 +0000
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