When Novak Djokovic battled past Dominic Thiem in two tiebreakers on Sunday afternoon at the Mutua Madrid Open, he surely figured he would soon be facing one of his contemporaries for the 54th time in his career in Sunday’s final.
Instead, Djokovic will run into an opponent 11 years his junior–who leads their head-to-head series by a grand total of 1-0.
It’s Djokovic vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas for the Madrid title after Tsitsipas stunned Rafael Nadal 6-4, 2-6, 6-3 on semifinal Saturday. The 20-year-old Greek had been 0-3 lifetime against Nadal but he has never been afraid of going up against the best players in the world. Tsitsipas defeated Djokovic 6-3, 6-7(5), 6-3 at last summer’s Toronto Masters and upset Roger Federer in four sets at the 2019 Australian Open.
The world No. 9 preceded his scalp of Nadal by beating Adrian Mannarino, Fernando Verdasco, and defending champion Alexander Zverev. He is now 27-9 this season and bidding for a second consecutive clay-court title, having lifted the Estoril trophy last week.
Djokovic’s 2019 has been more of a roller-coaster, but it is back on the rise after reaching an early zenith with an Australian Open title and then hitting some surprising depths in Indian Wells and Miami. The top-ranked Serb has advanced in Madrid with defeats of Taylor Fritz, Jeremy Chardy, and Dominic Thiem to go along with a walkover from Marin Cilic.
“I have to play the same way (as against Nadal),” Tsitsipas said. “I have to be mentally prepared for a tough match. He’s in a pretty good state of his tennis, so it won’t be easy. He had some good matches coming into the final, so I’m going to have to be ready for that match. I’m sure he wants the title as badly as me.”
This should be an entertaining one, but an edge goes to Djokovic thanks to his obvious return to form and his two previous Madrid titles. And as tough as his semifinal match was, it was not as physically or emotionally draining as that of Tsitsipas.
Pick: Djokovic in 3
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Only rafa is responsible for this rise of Novak..he lost that wimby semi to him n it totally changed Novak..
haha! interesting. But then by that logic Roger is responsible for the rise of Rafa after the wimby 2008 final. Rafa is responsible for the resurrection of Roger after the 2017 AO final.
In fact there is a stat that Novak has only lost one match to the worlds top ten in the last 18 tries, to Zverev. So he is steamrolling everyone
But he’s losing to non top ten players like Khachanov, Agut, Kohl and Medvedev this year! He’s just less consistent compared to his heydays.
Yeah, Sanju. It really is incredible how much of a fire that Wimby SF against Rafa lit under Novak… For more than 2 years leading up to that match, Novak had been a shell of himself, partly due to injury and partly due to a lack of his signature mental toughness. He just wasn’t very good for a couple years. Then, out of nowhere, he suddenly looked like the old Novak in that SF. On one hand I’m grateful for it because we ended up getting one of the greatest matches we’ve ever seen. (I put it as the 3rd greatest of their rivalry, behind 2012 AO and 2013 RG). On the other hand, I would have personally been more happy to have seen Novak sort of fade into oblivion, if I’m being totally honest here. But that was truly wishful thinking, as Novak is on pace to end up with the best argument for GOAT when all is said and done. There is still plenty of time for Fedal or others to prevent that from happening, but Novak has been trending upward legacy-wise, and the ball is in his court so-to-speak.
From here on out, every Slam that goes by that Novak does not win is a legacy-win for Fedal. And obviously any Slam that Rafa or Fed wins is crucial. While total slam count should not be the end-all-be-all, unfortunately too many people view it that way. Being 3 slams ahead of Djoko, as opposed to 2, would really go a long way for Rafa.
We all know that Rafa is still capable of beating anyone, including Djoko, to win RG 2019. He can absolutely do it. The odds are just more stacked against him like they were in 2014/2015/2016. He still managed to pull it out in 2014, and he can do that again. Given that Novak is 32, for all we know his chances could be running low, too. So trying to keep Novak to a one Slam net gain per season would be ideal for Rafa. Unfortunately for Fed, I think his chances of being able add to his tally are all but gone. Barring injury, I think his only really legitimate shot to get one more would be at Wimbledon this year. I mean, I gotta give it to Fed- it’s remarkable that he was able to keep the difference in slams the same as it was in 2014. If someone told me in 2015 that Rafa was going to add 3 more majors to his tally by over the next four years, I would have said “of course!”. But I would have assumed that that would mean that he would be tied with Fed at 17 in 2019. If someone had told me that Fed would ALSO add 3 more majors to HIS tally, thus keeping himself 3 ahead of Rafa, I would have told them they were insane. So Fed and Rafa both did really well to put some space between them and Novak over the last few years, but then in only six months time, Novak completely erased that 3 title gain that Fedal had built.
So yeah, if someone had told me had told me after RG 2016 that in 2019 Fed and Rafa would still be 5 and 2 major titles clear of Novak, respectively, I would never have believed it. Not with how insanely dominant Novak had been from Wimbledon 2014 through RG 2016.
Kevin, no offense, but I put your “we all know that Rafa is capable of…” in the same category as your hunches that Thiem was going to destroy Federer and Rafa was going to destroy Tsitsipas in Madrid. (To be fair, I picked Rafa as well in that match, and Tsitsi to beat Novak in 3).
You might say I’m biased, but I’ll bet a lot of even Rafa fans aren’t so sure that Rafa will win in Paris this year. Sure, he could beat Novak. Fed could also beat either of them, based on what I’ve seen so far. Anything is possible. But the reality of the clay season so far is that Rafa has been beat by three different players not named Novak or Roger. He’s shown flashes of very good (not, imo, world beating) play, along with some frankly bad play. He hasn’t been consistent, he hasn’t had the FH weapon, and he hasn’t served that well. His track record at RG has been incredible, but so had been his track record in MC and Barcelona.
Regarding Novak, I am still very doubtful that he will catch Fed’s slam record -though if he does I will not personally mind that much. I’m a big fan of Djokovic. I think there are too many very good young players coming up. I do think, however, that he has a decent chance of getting within 1 slam of Nadal, maybe tying him.
If anything, it’s those people in charged at Wimbledon or the AELTC who are the culprit for helping Djoko revive his career! Well, they’re always in favour of Fed, but by their stupid biased arrangements, instead of getting a Fedal final on their tenth anniversary after their epic 2008 final, they got a damp squid straight set boring final, and all the criticisms that come pouring in at them for their stupid scheduling and court arrangement.
It’s good rafa lost yesterday seeing the way Novak played today..rafa would not have won more than 3 games per set.
Troll me if you want but I am reconciled to rafa being third in slam tally n it’s painful but that’s how it’s looking to be now ..sad but true .rafa winning this rg is crucial or Novak not winning it..
Yeah best thing would be for Rafa to win RG and Novak to win the other two so that both get closer to the slam total of 20.
Some of us would beg to differ.
vmk1, don’t see why it’s best that Rafa only wins at RG while Djoko get to win at both Wimbledon and USO. If Rafa is fit and playing his best tennis, to me it’ll be best that Rafa wins all of them! He came close to winning FO/Wim B2B last year, if not for the stupid scheduling of the SFs.
@Jim Courier: djokovic is king still.
@edwina: don’t hate djokovic, don’t spread hate. nobody mentions dull’s butt picking.