Another lackluster Djokovic performance.

Zardoz7/12

Zardoz7/12

Hall of Fame
He looks limp out there, flaccid (puns not intended) and know that feeling when you're just going through the motions? He's been this way for a while since the ATP finals.

I personally suspect that there's a lack of motivation, it's not injuries because he wouldn't play end of story, as soon as you walk out on court you can't use the injury excuse. I wouldn't write him off just yet but there are signs.

My thoughts on Djokovic at the top of tennis is this, I respect his achievements but.....
 
It's combination of things I believe.

He will probably need to plan the schedule better than last part of 2023. He will be 37 in May and Roger was injured and effectively out of tennis at 37.

Now. Second most important thing is, yes, he has other distractions in life now. Playing with celebrities, attending NBA games. Nole always did these things, so it's not as if he is doing them only now. But right now it does take more time because of his stature increasing to GOAT. Now here I don't see any issue for Nole. He deserves to spend time with elites. Even if it makes him less prepared for matches, especially bo3 matches.

Finally his stamina is going to decline every week after week which is ok. His movement is still elite or even above elite. Still one of the best movers on the tour. These two things will have most issues with aging. But movement I don't think has any issue so stamina stamina stamina.

Creatina.

 
nolefam_2024 said:
It's combination of things I believe.

He will probably need to plan the schedule better than last part of 2023. He will be 37 in May and Roger was injured and effectively out of tennis at 37.

Now. Second most important thing is, yes, he has other distractions in life now. Playing with celebrities, attending NBA games. Nole always did these things, so it's not as if he is doing them only now. But right now it does take more time because of his stature increasing to GOAT. Now here I don't see any issue for Nole. He deserves to spend time with elites. Even if it makes him less prepared for matches, especially bo3 matches.

Finally his stamina is going to decline every week after week which is ok. His movement is still elite or even above elite. Still one of the best movers on the tour. These two things will have most issues with aging. But movement I don't think has any issue so stamina stamina stamina.

Creatina.

Click to expand...
I would also add that his Return Of Serve has been the biggest thing that has diminished for him as well.
 
Hitman said:
Laver 1969.....
Click to expand...
I was referring to only winning those combination of three Majors, plus Laver won the Grand Slam on two surfaces.
Nadal first and Djokovic later, are the only ones to win Major tournaments on all three surfaces in the same season.
:cool:
 
Soul_Evisceration said:
Honnestly, I have no idea.

Perhaps string his racquet tighter, put less on his Returns or even take some weight off his racquet.

I believe the current Djokovic we see with bad patches will happen more and more often.
Click to expand...
That is generally accepted theory that this will happen more often. The important thing is for this to not happen in grand slams and big tournaments often. Miami is very very intriguing. It's a faster surface than IW and Nole may find his range there. That can change everything. Just like Rio could have changed Alcaraz's year completely but he got injured.
 
uscwang said:
Many of us fans felt he shouldn't have played here in the first place. Doesn't serve any purpose except to get a few easy points.
He is trying hard to have fun but what really matters is to have fun competing in real matches. He doesn't have that now.
Click to expand...
I also mentioned that. If I was him, I would not play it. But did you see what Nole said in the press? He is not looking at IW lightly. He wanted to play for the last 2 years as well.

Now. About having fun, why should the GOAT not have fun? He worked all his life to be the GOAT and now he has achieved it, he is enjoying the rewards.
 
Bro's playing Masters only to push over young talents after he buried them for the last decade. I wouldn't draw conclusions based of his results off-slams.
 
Yeah looked like his ROS has declined some...not sure how to fix that as it seems like the shot most affected by aging (combo of eyesight and reflex). It's still outstanding compared to others but it's below his normal standard.

Unless Carlos get his form back I think Novak is still the big favorite to win Wimby.
 
norcal said:
Yeah looked like his ROS has declined some...not sure how to fix that as it seems like the shot most affected by aging (combo of eyesight and reflex). It's still outstanding compared to others but it's below his normal standard.

Unless Carlos get his form back I think Novak is still the big favorite to win Wimby.
Click to expand...
Carlos might get sidelined for Wimby. Sinner is here.
 
Növakk Djøkövinnen sends his regards from Helsinki.

images
 
He definitely looked old to me. He could still chase down most balls (although he gave up on a lot of drop shots), but didn't have any pop on his groundstrokes at all. Nardi played out of his mind, but I don't think vintage Djokovic would have been overwhelmed by it. Seemed like most of the times Novak tried to push Nardi back, he'd hit the ball long. This will be an interesting year.
 
Consistency is what will go for Djoker beyond anything else. He will still probably win some M1000s and slams if Sinneraz don’t step up, as he will have hot streaks again. But I genuinely think 36 year old IW Nadal would have beaten 36 year old IW Djoker, and that says something about the level of the latter rn. Although to be fair Ned did nearly get knocked out by Korda as well
 
jl809 said:
I genuinely think 36 year old IW Nadal would have beaten 36 year old IW Djoker, and that says something about the level of the latter rn. Although to be fair Ned did nearly get knocked out by Korda as well
Click to expand...
That Rafa was 35 going on 36 while this Novak is 36 going on 37, but regardless I agree. Rafa’s start to 2022 was definitively better than Novak’s start to 2024 in terms of level, and I find it almost impossible that Novak could be better at RG either.
 
Kralingen said:
That Rafa was 35 going on 36 while this Novak is 36 going on 37, but regardless I agree. Rafa’s start to 2022 was definitively better than Novak’s start to 2024 in terms of level, and I find it almost impossible that Novak could be better at RG either.
Click to expand...
Oh whoops yeah, forgot Ned got thanos snapped out of a whole year lol
 
Kralingen said:
That Rafa was 35 going on 36 while this Novak is 36 going on 37, but regardless I agree. Rafa’s start to 2022 was definitively better than Novak’s start to 2024 in terms of level, and I find it almost impossible that Novak could be better at RG either.
Click to expand...
Your usual jinx attempt, 2024 version of it. In your next comment you will probably say 2024 Nadal is in better form than Djokovic as well.
 
Detriment said:
He definitely looked old to me. He could still chase down most balls (although he gave up on a lot of drop shots), but didn't have any pop on his groundstrokes at all. Nardi played out of his mind, but I don't think vintage Djokovic would have been overwhelmed by it. Seemed like most of the times Novak tried to push Nardi back, he'd hit the ball long. This will be an interesting year.
Click to expand...
Many of the Italians are tricky players. While Nole might not be at his best, but I have to give Nardi his credits as well. Let's see what Nole does in Miami. Slower courts are hurting him right now but it's ok. He is very quick around the court.
 
StrongRule said:
You know very well that he is going to vulture DO once again, but try to jinx.
Click to expand...
I said that it is highly unlikely that he’ll surpass 2022 Nadal’s level on clay, even if he does win it (which is surely possible), given that 22 Nadal was clearly better than 23 Djokovic there.
 
At this age nobody is consistent, he was destroying Sinner and Alcaraz back to back not long ago, he can still reach that level but these slumps are expected. Federer had some bad spell in 2018 that made everyone think he was finished and then played great in 2019 from Dubai to Wimbledon or so and then when he was actually done it was mostly injuries. A lot of people were saying Nadal was done in 2021 and in 2022 he won 2 slams and made the semi of another one.
 
Saw his loss live yesterday and his first round on TV. He played at about the level he did in Australia for most of the two tournaments there - not too much pop on groundstrokes after being amongst the biggest hitters last year, missed many returns, bailed out on long rallies early with drop shots or made unforced errors, didn’t show a lot of emotion/energy. Nardi bullied Djokovic on several baseline rallies with more power and he is not known as one of the big hitters on tour. Yesterday, it always looked like Nardi was the better player except a short stretch late in the 2nd when he sprayed some errors.

In Oz, it seemed like Djokovic was recovering from a respiratory illness, but here there were no rumors about anything affecting his health except for the elbow sleeve he wore in practices. Very puzzling as I have never seen a player look declined so much comparing his form of Fall-2023 (won Cinci, USO, Bercy, ATP Finals) with his early 2024 form without any injury reason - especially don’t understand why he would lose the extra power on his FH compared to 2023. Speculatively, could it be a re-occurence of his elbow issue that affected him from mid-2016 to early 2018?
 
norcal said:
Yeah looked like his ROS has declined some...not sure how to fix that as it seems like the shot most affected by aging (combo of eyesight and reflex). It's still outstanding compared to others but it's below his normal standard.

Unless Carlos get his form back I think Novak is still the big favorite to win Wimby.
Click to expand...

As @Gary Duane has said, the true measure of the dominant player is the return games won.

As you age, defense/return diminishes and you start to break serve less and less.

There's no reversing that slide once it starts. Players usually try to compensate by getting more free points on serve, which he and Rafa have both done successfully. Djoko looks to have added 20 or so pounds of muscle since the Pepe days and that's got to be part of the reason why

But he has obviously lost a step and will only lose more. Now we may see a real breakdown in his results, because he does not play first-strike tennis and relies on the legs to win
 
Going to say it again.

The relative lack of popularity along with the absolute lack of a statue is finally getting to him.

He thought 23 slams would be the inflection point.

Tennis fans said malo morgen.

Now he doesn't know what he's fighting for.
 
He’s looked like crap all year. Well I can’t blame him I guess. I would find it very difficult to be motivated if I held damn near every record in tennis that chances are no one will ever catch
 
Actually, I thought Djokovic played okay, it wasn’t his best performance but it was still good.

One thing I didn’t like was how Djokovic argued with the umpire about the stopping that Nardi did, even if Djokovic was legitimately confused it was unnecessary, he ended up winning that set anyways.

I’m still expecting Djokovic to win at least another slam this year.
 
I always believed that Djokovics decline would be slow. Going from winning 3 slams in a season to 1-2 slams in a season to 0-1 and then eventually winning a 27-30th slam.

But now it looks like he will end his career like Nadal. So just suddenly stopping winning slams alltogether.
 
The margins in tennis are infinitely small. A slight decrease in performance is all you need to go from winning 3 slams a year to all of a sudden no longer being a serious contender. Not saying that's Novak but at that age it can happen and happen quickly
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

N
Wimbledon Contenders 2024
2 3
Replies
112
Views
8K
a10best
a10best
Doctor/Lawyer Red Devil
Djokovic - the full statement
2
Replies
54
Views
5K
swordtennis
swordtennis
Underdog
The Tougher Route Debate: Federer v Djokovic
Replies
13
Views
2K
Neptune
Neptune
Hitman
Why the big 3 are made from the same cloth - How they captured the unicorns
Replies
27
Views
1K
messiahrobins
messiahrobins
B
How much talent did Andrei Medvedev have?
Replies
42
Views
2K
mattennis
M
Back
Top