Showing posts with label Davis Cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Davis Cup. Show all posts
Novak Djokovic Defeats Roger Federer to Win U.S. Open
Roger Federer was on a roll: a new service return, renewed confidence and 28 straight sets won coming into the United States Open final.
Once again, Novak Djokovic was the antidote.
After
stopping Federer’s momentum in four sets in this year’s Wimbledon
final, Djokovic did the same on Sunday, prevailing against an inspired
opponent and a hostile crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium to underscore his
status as the world’s No. 1 player.
Djokovic’s
6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 victory gave him a second U.S. Open singles title
and a 10th Grand Slam singles title, moving him into a tie with Bill
Tilden for seventh place on the career list.
Federer remains on top of that pecking order with 17, but Djokovic has prevented him from adding to his record total.
Federer is playing remarkable tennis at age 34, but Djokovic,
at 28, is in his prime and remains one of the great tennis conundrums
for any opponent with his tactical versatility and peerless defensive
skills.
“You
have to find the right dose of risk,” Federer said after his latest
defeat. “Sometimes I did it well and other times not as well.”
Federer
has fared much better against Djokovic than most, and their rivalry is
the best the men’s game has to offer at the moment, with Rafael Nadal in
a slump that could turn out to be a decline.
Federer and Djokovic have played 42 times, and Djokovic’s victory on Sunday tied the series, 21-21.
It
remains a contrast in styles, even more so now that Federer has
recommitted to the attack under his co-coach Stefan Edberg, the former
Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion who was a net-rushing marvel at his
peak. But Federer has yet to win a major title with Edberg in his camp
and is now 6-8 against Djokovic in Grand Slam matches.
“In
Grand Slams, the conditions are not as fast,” Federer said. “Take
tonight. These were the coolest conditions I’ve had for a month. I’m not
saying I lost because of that, but it’s a fact. Also, to play
aggressively against him for a longer period of time is even more
complicated. That was not really the case today. I had the keys in my
hand and did some good things, but I just didn’t win the important
points to turn the match or get ahead. He was always in front, more or
less, and at one moment or another, that pays off. He’s more relaxed
than when playing from behind.”
Djokovic
is hardly just a defender. He takes plenty of risks of his own and is
particularly adept at transforming seeming vulnerability into offense
when extended into the corners of the court.
The
level of risk required to break him down is enormous, and he is also a
moving target. The tactic that works in the first set may not work in
the fourth.
“He’s
like a shark,” Goran Ivanisevic, the former Wimbledon champion now
coaching Marin Cilic, told BBC Radio here. “If he smells blood, he
attacks.”
Hardcourts
have traditionally been Djokovic’s happiest hunting ground, suiting his
precise footwork best. But U.S. Open finals have been more stumbling
blocks than showcases for him. He had lost four of the five in which he
had played until Sunday. And he literally stumbled in the first set of
this final when he lost his balance while changing direction in the
fourth game and fell hard to the blue court, scraping his right forearm
and looking a bit dazed for the next few points as Federer, who had been
broken in the third game, succeeded in breaking back.
“There
was still a little bit of moisture on the court, I think, from the rain
and a bit of humidity and so forth,” Djokovic said. “I needed two,
three games, really, to kind of regroup.”
This
much-anticipated final between the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 players was
delayed more than three hours by rain. When it finally did begin, it
quickly became apparent (and audible) that Djokovic would be playing on
the road, with the sellout crowd at Ashe Stadium giving Federer nothing
but positive reinforcement and greeting Djokovic’s winners with polite
applause at best and frequently cheering for his unforced errors and
missed first serves.
Eva
Asderaki-Moore, the first female chair umpire to work a U.S. Open men’s
singles final, did her best to manage the partisan vibe. Her plea of
“Please” became something approximating a mantra, and she also had a
remarkable night reading the flow of play, making correct overrules and
keeping a firm rein on a match that could easily have escaped control.
A
lesser champion than Djokovic might have cracked in such an atmosphere,
but this was hardly his first experience with Federer fever, hardly his
first experience battling the crowd as well as the opponent.
He
has played and won Davis Cup matches for Serbia for many years. He has
beaten Lleyton Hewitt of Australia at the Australian Open, Jo-Wilfried
Tsonga of France at the French Open
and faced Andy Murray of Britain at Wimbledon, although he was the
victim when Murray ended a 77-year singles drought for British men at
the All England Club in 2013.
At
this stage of his remarkable career, Federer plays in front of a home
crowd in nearly every venue. For Federer, such support has certainly
made it easier for him to continue to find the motivation after having
won all the major titles (except the Olympic gold medal in singles) that
there are to win.
“It’s definitely one of the reasons I keep playing,” Federer said. “These goose bump moments.”
Djokovic
was diplomatic enough to avoid any triumphant notes in his remarks
during the awards ceremonies. If he is weary of playing against the
Federer bandwagon, he did not mention it.
“I
can’t sit here and criticize the crowd — on the contrary, I think it’s
logical to expect that a great player and a champion like Roger has the
majority of the support anywhere I play him,” Djokovic said in his
postmatch news conference. “I accept the fact. Everybody has a choice to
support a player that they want to support. And he absolutely deserves
to have the support he does because of all the years and success that he
has had and the way he carries himself on and off the court. Me, I’m
there to earn the support, and hopefully in the future I can be in that
position.”
Still,
it seemed an appropriate choice that Djokovic chose to watch the movie
“300” on the eve of the Open final. Like the Spartan warriors against
the Persians, he was outnumbered, too. One of the film’s stars, Gerard
Butler, was in Djokovic’s box on Sunday.
“When I looked at him, I said, This is Sparta,” Djokovic said. “It felt great.”
Djokovic
has become as tough to break down mentally as he is tough to break down
in a baseline rally. And with Federer’s first-serve percentage stuck
below 50 percent, Djokovic won the opening set.
Federer
found his form in the second, but as at Wimbledon, he was unable to
sustain that drive, even with the crowd fully behind him, cheering for
Djokovic’s missed first serves and other errors.
Federer’s
final chance to extend the match came in the fourth set, when he cut
Djokovic’s two-break advantage to 5-4 from 5-2 and then had three
break-point opportunities on the Serb’s serve to get back to 5-5.
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But
Djokovic saved them all and was soon celebrating in the players’ box
with his friends, family, and team, which includes Edberg’s longtime
rival Boris Becker, now Djokovic’s head coach. Their cheers had been
drowned out for most of the night, but they ended up cheering the
loudest as Federer, who converted just 4 of 23 break points in the
match, sat glumly in his chair.
“I
think it was the right game plan, just execution was sometimes missing
in some crucial moments,” Federer said. “But other than that, I think I
played a good match. Maybe I haven’t played this offensive for a very
long time, and that’s maybe the reason as well why maybe I was slightly
shaky when it came to the crunch on the break points. Who knows?”
What
is clear is that Djokovic’s victory made his season one of the finest
in tennis history — even better in Grand Slam terms than his remarkable
2011 season, when he won three of the major singles titles and lost in
the semifinals of the French Open to Federer.
This
year, he joined Federer and Rod Laver as the only men in the Open era
to reach all four major finals, his only defeat coming in the final of
the French Open against Stan Wawrinka, Federer’s inspired Swiss
compatriot.
Federer
was clearly inspired himself on this summer hardcourt swing: winning in
Mason, Ohio (beating Djokovic in the final), and then reaching the U.S.
Open final without losing so much as a set. But beating Djokovic over a
best-of-five-set match is still the biggest challenge in men’s tennis,
and Federer, for all his tennis genius, has not managed it since the
Wimbledon semifinals in 2012.
At least he knows his efforts are appreciated.
“It’s
a great consolation for me to receive this kind of support in a country
that is a long way from Switzerland and is one of the countries that is
the most powerful in sports in general,” Federer said of Sunday’s
crowd. “They love winners here.”
Djokovic might disagree.
Correction: September 17, 2015
An article on Monday about Novak Djokovic winning men’s singles at the United States Open misstated, in some editions, his record against Andy Murray at Wimbledon. While he has faced Murray there, he has not beaten him.
Game tree: the unstoppable Novak Djokovic
Twelve
months ago, Novak Djokovic headed Down Under with a score to settle
after an epic five-set quarterfinal loss to Stan Wawrinka in 2014. Last
January, Djokovic would meet Wawrinka again, this time in the
semifinals, and this time Djokovic would be the victor.
Djokovic would go on to defeat Andy Murray in the Australian Open final, and from that point on, the Serb was almost unstoppable. By the end of the 2015 season, Djokovic had won 11 titles, including three Grand Slams, and finished the year with an incredible win-loss record of 82-6.
To celebrate Djokovic’s historic season, we present his 2015 interactive Game Tree. Djokovic’s Game Tree allows you to explore his 1033 service games played in 2015.
This rare point-by-point summary shows where Djokovic’s history-breaking season was won – and rarely lost.
How the game tree works
The game tree shows how dominant (or not) Djokovic was on serve during the 2015 season. This unique visualisation gives us a better understanding of the final score, and how close Djokovic’s service games were.
Each point in the game tree is color-coded to reflect the momentum in each of Djokovic’s service games. A match that is dominated by Djokovic is highlighted with a thicker, outside flow through the ‘positive’ points of the game tree. More tightly-contested service games result in thicker lines through the ‘neutral’ and ‘negative’ points of the Game Tree.
Click on each line to reveal how many times the player won or lost that point.
Fast facts
• Djokovic played 1033 service games in 2015.
• He won 923 (89.4 per cent) of his service games.
• He won almost one-third (29.2 per cent) of his service games from 40-15.
• His most successful point is at deuce, where he wins 81.3 per cent of the time.
• His least successful point is at 15-0, where he wins 65.9 per cent of the time.
Matches to look out for
Not all of Djokovic’s service games were straight out the textbook as his results might suggest. Yes, he was brutally dominant at times against players like Marcos Baghdatis at the BNP Paribas Masters, where Baghdatis failed to put any pressure whatsoever on Novak’s serve (see below).
We saw many more tightly-contested service games in his match against Tomas Berdych at Monte Carlo. The game tree shows that Berdych had some serious opportunities, having Novak 0-30 six times throughout the match. Unfortunately, Djokovic was able to wrestle back the momentum from half of these points and went on to win the match 7-5 4-6 6-3.
Andy Murray, one of the few players beat Djokovic in 2015, did so at the Coupe Rogers in Toronto. Murray piled on the pressure and pushed Novak to deuce six times throughout the match. Murray won half of these and would break one other time at 30-40. That would be enough for a rare victory for Murray.
Summary
Djokovic’s 2015 season was no doubt one for the ages, but he didn’t always have it his own way as the results might suggest. The final score of course is only a small part of a much larger and more complex story, and the game tree enables us to better understand that score. Here we have explored just a few interesting examples of patterns and trends that we may have not have seen using conventional tennis reporting methods.
I encourage you to use the game tree to take a deeper dive into some of Novak’s classic matches last year and to see what might have been for some of his closest rivals, as they begin their assault to dethrone the undisputed 2015 king of men’s tennis.
Notes
Walkovers not included.
The Djokovic v Nishikori match at World Tour Finals is not included due to incomplete data.
Damien Saunder is a performance analyst who supports elite tennis players and coaches in the area of data visualisation and analytics.
Djokovic would go on to defeat Andy Murray in the Australian Open final, and from that point on, the Serb was almost unstoppable. By the end of the 2015 season, Djokovic had won 11 titles, including three Grand Slams, and finished the year with an incredible win-loss record of 82-6.
To celebrate Djokovic’s historic season, we present his 2015 interactive Game Tree. Djokovic’s Game Tree allows you to explore his 1033 service games played in 2015.
This rare point-by-point summary shows where Djokovic’s history-breaking season was won – and rarely lost.
How the game tree works
The game tree shows how dominant (or not) Djokovic was on serve during the 2015 season. This unique visualisation gives us a better understanding of the final score, and how close Djokovic’s service games were.
Each point in the game tree is color-coded to reflect the momentum in each of Djokovic’s service games. A match that is dominated by Djokovic is highlighted with a thicker, outside flow through the ‘positive’ points of the game tree. More tightly-contested service games result in thicker lines through the ‘neutral’ and ‘negative’ points of the Game Tree.
Click on each line to reveal how many times the player won or lost that point.
Fast facts
• Djokovic played 1033 service games in 2015.
• He won 923 (89.4 per cent) of his service games.
• He won almost one-third (29.2 per cent) of his service games from 40-15.
• His most successful point is at deuce, where he wins 81.3 per cent of the time.
• His least successful point is at 15-0, where he wins 65.9 per cent of the time.
Matches to look out for
Not all of Djokovic’s service games were straight out the textbook as his results might suggest. Yes, he was brutally dominant at times against players like Marcos Baghdatis at the BNP Paribas Masters, where Baghdatis failed to put any pressure whatsoever on Novak’s serve (see below).
We saw many more tightly-contested service games in his match against Tomas Berdych at Monte Carlo. The game tree shows that Berdych had some serious opportunities, having Novak 0-30 six times throughout the match. Unfortunately, Djokovic was able to wrestle back the momentum from half of these points and went on to win the match 7-5 4-6 6-3.
Andy Murray, one of the few players beat Djokovic in 2015, did so at the Coupe Rogers in Toronto. Murray piled on the pressure and pushed Novak to deuce six times throughout the match. Murray won half of these and would break one other time at 30-40. That would be enough for a rare victory for Murray.
Summary
Djokovic’s 2015 season was no doubt one for the ages, but he didn’t always have it his own way as the results might suggest. The final score of course is only a small part of a much larger and more complex story, and the game tree enables us to better understand that score. Here we have explored just a few interesting examples of patterns and trends that we may have not have seen using conventional tennis reporting methods.
I encourage you to use the game tree to take a deeper dive into some of Novak’s classic matches last year and to see what might have been for some of his closest rivals, as they begin their assault to dethrone the undisputed 2015 king of men’s tennis.
Notes
Walkovers not included.
The Djokovic v Nishikori match at World Tour Finals is not included due to incomplete data.
Damien Saunder is a performance analyst who supports elite tennis players and coaches in the area of data visualisation and analytics.
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In:
Andy Murray,
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Novak Djokovic Serbian tennis player
Novak Djokovic, (born May 22, 1987, Belgrade, Yugoslavia [now in Serbia]), Serbian tennis player who was one of the game’s premier performers in the early 21st century, when he won 11 Grand Slam titles.
Djokovic
took up tennis at age four and quickly ascended the junior ranks.
Despite the hardships that came with growing up in the war-torn Serbia of the 1990s, he became Europe’s
top-ranked 14-and-under player and later the number one 16-and-under
player on the continent before turning professional in 2003. Djokovic
entered the top 100 of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) at
age 18, and in July 2006 he won his first ATP event. After advancing to
the semifinals at both the 2007 French Open and Wimbledon, he reached the finals of that year’s U.S. Open but lost in straight sets to Roger Federer. Djokovic’s hot play continued into 2008 as he won the first Grand Slam tournament of the year, the Australian Open, becoming the first Serbian man to win one of tennis’s four most prestigious singles championships.
Djokovic’s progress plateaued for almost three years, as he won just 10 ATP men’s singles tournaments
and reached only one Grand Slam final (the 2010 U.S. Open) between
February 2008 and the end of 2010. His fortunes turned in December 2010
when he led the Serbian Davis Cup team to the country’s first Davis Cup
title. His Davis Cup victories marked the beginning of a 43-match
winning steak—the third longest such streak in the Open era (since
1968)—which included a second Australian Open
title in January 2011. Djokovic’s remarkable streak ended with a French
Open semifinal loss to Federer, but his strong play helped him rise to
the number one world ranking shortly after he defeated Rafael Nadal
to capture the 2011 Wimbledon championship. Djokovic later defeated
Nadal in the U.S. Open final to claim his third Grand Slam title of the
year.
At the Australian Open in 2012, he again bested Nadal,
winning a five-set thriller that lasted nearly six hours. The two met
for the fourth consecutive Grand Slam final at the 2012 French Open,
where Djokovic lost to Nadal in four sets. In 2013 Djokovic defeated Andy Murray
to win his fourth Australian Open title, and he captured another
Wimbledon championship the following year when he beat Federer in a
dramatic five-set final. He again beat Murray to capture his fifth
career Australian Open in 2015, which made Djokovic the all-time leader
in Australian Open men’s singles championships during the Open era.
After a loss in the 2015 French Open final, the top-ranked Djokovic
bested Federer to win his third Wimbledon championship. He continued his
hot play at the U.S. Open, beating Federer in the final to capture his
10th career Grand Slam title. Djokovic ran his winning streak in Grand
Slam matches to 21 when he beat Murray in straight sets in the final of
the 2016 Australian Open.
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