I always try to avoid the armchair psychoanalysis when there’s a physical explanation. Fatigue and conditions (2016, USO 2012, Wimby 2013) can be blamed but in a lot of those finals it’s luck, a couple big points don’t go your way and your opponent is around his level, so you lose. With all of the Big 3 this is true, especially Federer, he’s not some mental midget because a few flip of a coin points went against him across a 20-yr career.
Each of those finals, even the 2013 one when Djokovic looked out of it from the start, have a common theme of unconverted BPs or UEs from a slip or miss hit here and there. And we know the matchup wasn’t that bad as he basically owned Stan and to a lesser extent Muzzah in all other matches around that time. After USO 2013 he won like 5 straight Masters and won the WTF 2012-2014, so these losses came in the midst of the most dominant Masters stretches ever.
Of course, why would we be on TTW if we didn’t want to do armchair psychoanalysis? 2012-14 Djokovic reminds me a lot of Federer’s ‘08/09 struggles tbh. His 2011 tennis was so powerful that he didn’t feel the need to make any changes. He was able to zone and get amped up on adrenaline for Fedal matches as a) he had the physical advantage and b) they were easily the toughest matches he played, demanding 100% buy in and removing pressure. Then suddenly he’s the favorite, world #1 and world famous, and he’s across the line from an ‘inferior’ player who gameplanned for him, not the opposite. Except this inferior player is able to take his methodical baseline game apart by either mirroring him defensively (Murray) or hitting point-flipping baseline groundstrokes (Stan), or Nishikori in ‘14. Djokovic was the definition of 10% tennis in that era, each shot gaining a 10% advantage then another, then another, then hitting that winner at a 80/20 advantage in the point. Both Stan/Andy either turned the point around at 70/30 or forced him to try to win points early. Suddenly plan A isn’t working and his opponent isn’t folding like he expected and there was no extra gear to reach. GSM and he looked a little shell shocked at the end of each. he needed Becker really badly imo, he just didn’t know how to fully prepare for big Slam Finals and raise his level from the dozens of Masters Finals he was playing. Mentally he gave everything in AO/Clay season IMO and didn’t really have an off season, so he was just going flat to a lot of these matches. You could tell in ‘13 that FO loss broke him the rest of the year.
He’s quite a sensitive guy, moreso than the other two, and the doubt monster in all aspects of his life shone through a lot. He was actually a little fragile in the spotlight from the beginning too. His attention grabbing USO 2007 stunt seemed pre-planned to me, similar to Agassi wearing the flashy clothes to give them something else to talk about than his game. Anyone who retires 10x from matches has to be very self conscious about their own weakness, and I know that a few of those were down to fear, the inability to quiet the doubting inner voice everyone gets with heavy fatigue. I think that voice came back with fatigue in a lot of his Slam losses and instead of retiring he just fell flat.
This nuance of course will likely be lost to the wind if he breaks the Slam record though.
