How do you solve a problem like Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon?
Asked for a solution following his third-round defeat on Friday, Stan Wawrinka said there simply wasn’t one. In an ideal world, he said, “someone can beat him… but I would be astonished to see it here”.
Djokovic has not lost on Centre Court for a decade since Andy Murray’s first Wimbledon title. So how exactly do you beat him? When asked, three-time Wimbledon champion John McEnroe, rarely a man lost for words, simply said: “I don’t have an answer.”
His co-commentator on the BBC Tim Henman’s solution, meanwhile, was essentially one of hit and hope. “You’ve got to concentrate on your game and hope he hits a few bad shots,” said the former Wimbledon semi-finalist. “But take into consideration he hasn’t lost on this court for 10 years and I think he fancies his chances against most people.”
In the fourth round, which spanned Sunday and yesterday, Hubert Hurkacz played nigh-on his best tennis. He rifled down game after game of monstrous serves and conceded just four points on serve in deservedly winning the fourth set.
Prior to the fourth set against Djokovic, he had not lost a service games. But when the one chance of the whole match was offered up, the 23-time grand slam took it, the sole break against Hurkacz in 69 service games.
Craig O’Shannessy was former the strategy coach for Djokovic, dissecting data to feed back to his player.
“There are two parts to winning Wimbledon, one is holding serve and one is breaking serve,” said the Australian. “Hurkacz is the poster child for holding serve but is out of the tournament. The problem is he couldn’t break Novak, his forehand wasn’t good enough. He made way too many errors.”
In the opening two sets, Djokovic held to love on six occasions and only once was taken to deuce.
“The problem is Hurkacz couldn’t apply any pressure,” said O’Shannessy. “Novak’s just cruising on serve and that builds up over time. That just gives him massive confidence when it comes to a tiebreaker that the other guy is not going to put a lot of returns in play.”
Djokovic has a great ability to find a weakness in an opponent be that pre-match or as the match wore on. In the case of Hurkacz, it was the forehand, which he relentlessly peppered until finally it cracked.
Feliciano Lopez played Djokovic 10 times in his career before his retirement, only once finding a way to win. Unpicking him is a mystery to have plagued many other players beyond him.
On the problem of facing him, Lopez said: “You talk about weaknesses and I don’t see any. With Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, there wasn’t so much a weakness but you could find a spot to hit balls – like Roger’s backhand side was not that aggressive. With those two I sometimes felt I had a small chance to do something. That’s not the case with Novak.”
The former world No1 has shown occasional fallibility. Rustiness is often a factor. Of his four losses this season, two came after lengthy breaks from playing, one came in Monte Carlo where he has habitually struggled and a fourth at the Italian Open.
Rune was his vanquisher in Rome, the win a credit to him being aggressive, trading blows confidently from the back of the court and picking the right moment to the rush the net.
Doing that over five sets is another matter. Such is the concentration needed to beat Djokovic over just a single set at Wimbledon, maintaining that for five is nigh-on impossible.
O’Shannessy said perhaps the best way to beat Djokovic is for him to beat himself.
He added: “There’s another way Novak loses, his loses his mind. We’ve seen it at times when he just gets so mad on court he can’t see straight from screaming at his box. I don’t see that happening at Centre Court Wimbledon.”
Djokovic does not look like cracking. So relaxed was he before the Hurkacz match, he was still laughing and joking playing board games with his team half an hour beforehand. And unsurprisingly, he won that board game too.
