Instead of getting confused in this troubled 2022, Novak Djokovic (35) goes and breaks more records.
He is already the oldest winner of the Masters Cup (the previous one was Roger Federer: he was 30 years old in his 2011 triumph). He is already the tennis player who has bagged the largest financial prize in a single day, with the 4.7 million euros that he collected this Sunday. And he already has as many masters titles as Federer, six for both.
So the tennis of before, that of the playful and elastic returner, is still valid: Djokovic does not give up.
We focus towards 2023 and things get really interesting. Carlos Alcaraz (19), the teenager who has taken over the ATP circuit, announces high-end cars and through the rear-view mirror observes what is coming his way. Djokovic has not left, but has reared.
Perhaps angry with the world, Djokovic is willing to recover what he considers his own.
His problems with the vaccines and his extradition from Melbourne and his ban in New York and his abdominal injury have delayed him, but that now brings him to the stop: he was never considered the eighth racket in the world (with that ranking he had appeared in Turin at the beginning weekdays), but the best.
And if anyone has to be crushed, they are crushed.
Jelena Djokovic and the couple's children, Stefan and Tara, peek into the VIP box of the Serbian talent and watch how the pater familias torments Casper Ruud (23), the tennis player who shoots the penalties at the post.
(In this 2022, the Norwegian has missed the finals of Roland Garros and the US Open, and also the world number 1, and now, this final of the Masters Cup)
Taciturn and focused, Djokovic is a power hammer.
When it serves, it does so with variety and success. Eight aces signed in the first set (nine in total), for only one from Ruud.
When he returns, he reaches almost everything, anticipates Ruud's blows and cancels him with two breaks, one per set.
And when he attacks, Djokovic is outlined to the left.
He takes three or four little steps back and continues hitting with his right hand, diagonal right hands that keep Ruud cornered, one-two-three-four times he insists on the reverse, and when the stew is already cooked, the Serb goes to parallel and finishes off the play.
–The break in the first set (in the twelfth game) was decisive. I was looking for that, I was looking to raise the level of the rest in those decisive moments, and it has worked,” says Djokovic.
The closing of the match outlines the virtues of Djokovic.
The Serbian insists and insists and appropriates the penultimate point of the match, the one that leads him to match point, after an exchange of 36 shots. And the next time, on match point, Djokovic registers his ninth ace and finishes off the Norwegian.
"I've been very nervous in this final stretch, I won't deny it," Djokovic confesses. He hadn't awarded me this title for seven years. That's a long time, right? I'm certainly relieved.
(He had not won the trophy since 2015; he had lost the 2016 and 2018 finals, to Andy Murray and Sasha Zverev, respectively)
With 7-5 and 6-3 against, Casper Ruud bows his head and accepts reality.
The reality is that he will have to keep waiting, a martyrdom in these current times, between the Big Three and puppies like Alcaraz, Rune and Sinner.
