It's difficult to get a bead on where Novak Djokovic's game through his first two matches at the 2017 French Open. He's mowed through Marcel Granollers and Joao Sausa - two competent clay-courters - without the loss of a set, but then we're not just looking at these two performances in a vacuum, are we? No, we're REALLY just comparing Djokovic to the player who brought tennis to it's knees from 2011 until the 2016 French Open...the "old" Novak. A player some would call the best there has ever been on the men's side. Fair comparison on our part? Of course not, but it's reality, because nobody - and I mean, NOBODY - is ready to give up on the "Big 4" dominating men's tennis. Not with Federer and Rafa contesting yet another Slam final in Australia, and not with Andy Murray sitting on the #1 spot and trying to gather some momentum as he tries to replicate his own '16 run at Roland Garros. We want to see Novak Djokovic firmly in the mix, hopefully duking it out with Nadal in another epic French semi-final slugfest between the best dirt-ballers of their generation. It's what we've come to expect, but we just can't pencil it in at this point. We'd be getting way ahead of ourselves.
There's a ton of buzz swirling around Novak for a whole bunch of different reasons, but let's just ignore all of that and focus on the recent "positives" we have from Djokovic, which really boil down to a thrashing of Dominic Thiem in a Rome semi. Novak did look pretty damn vintage in that mismatch, and it was a performance that had a lot of folks proclaiming that the reigning French Open champ had returned to form. Then, Djokovic went out and got absolutely hammered in the final by Sascha Sverev. It was ugly, the Serb was tight from the start, and he never gained any solid footing in a match that saw him fall 6-4, 6-3 to a 20 year-old playing in his first Masters 1000 final. To make matters worse, Djokovic was surly all day, and his poor attitude and demeanor cast a pall over what should have been a day where Sverev enjoyed the full spotlight as a rising power in the sport. Nobody's perfect, but we all know Djokovic is better than that on both fronts.
So what kind of insight can you gain from a lopsided win and loss against elite, young players, two days apart? The most glaring would be that, consistency - on several levels - has left the building. Which is the real Novak Djokovic? At this point, both, it's just a coin toss as to which version takes the court for a match. It's a frustrating scenario for fans, let alone an athlete who has played in a staggering 21 Grand Slam finals before the age of 30. Djokovic is unquestionably still a force to be reckoned with - he had some nice moments in a Madrid semis loss to Rafa that showed he can still amp the intensity up on a big stage - but he is just as surely a shadow of the player born in 2011 so long as he continues to suffer from drastic and puzzling dips in play. Those "levels" of consistency are comprehensive, they are affected and intertwined by training and conditioning, match preparation, mental focus, attitude, fortitude, belief...one ingredient lacking can set off a negative chain reaction within the recipe. The bright side? Djokovic is one of the blessed few that have nailed the recipe down to perfection.
Djokovic can't fool the man in the mirror, and he probably knows he's in a minor state of rebuild...no issues that can't be fixed, but it doesn't mean it will be an overnight project, either. This is an important tournament for him, he needs to pass some tests, check some boxes. Smaller-scale stuff that will have a great impact on the bigger picture, somewhere down the road. Tomorrow's match against Diego Schwartzman, for example, is a valuable opportunity to stand in there with a player who can go backhand-to-backhand - a tried and true Djokovic pattern - with anybody, and who isn't going to shrink from the occasion. Schwartzman can be a backboard on clay, and "Nole" will not only have to work hard for his success, but also be prepared to handle some adversity. This is the guy Novak should WANT to see! It's time for Djokovic to refocus on the process that built his consistency, and to take faith that the desired results will eventually come.
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