US Open 2018: Driven by new-found self-belief, Novak Djokovic aims to overcome Juan Martin del Potro challenge in final

Any picture painted of Novak Djokovic the tennis player prior to the 2018 French Open this year might have shown you a fragile giant, an immense talent struggling to balance injuries, mental health issues and media speculation about every aspect of his life. According to every editorial, human interest article, profile and analysis, Djokovic, until earlier this year the winner of twelve Grand Slams, was ‘struggling’ – and that would not be incorrect. [caption id=“attachment_5149311” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Routinely losing his temper on court, Djokovic was not the Djokovic many had known. AFP[/caption] Then, he was the Great with a chip on his shoulder, carrying a weight that seemed too great to bear. Routinely losing his temper on court, Djokovic was not the Djokovic many had known. In the years since his debut, Djokovic has changed his coaching team, as have many players. But he is perhaps the only player at that level to have had so many changes, so fast – and so high profile. In 2006, Djokovic joined forces with the only truly permanent fixture on his coaching team – former Serbian player Marian Vajda, fulfilling perhaps the same role that Severin Luthi does in the career of Roger Federer. In 2017, just a year after he broke his long-held French Open “jinx” and won top honours at Roland-Garros, Novak Djokovic shocked the entire tennis world by firing the entirety of his team –including his longtime coach and confidant Vajda. That year saw his career in free fall as he tumbled down the rankings, faltering at Major after Major. The Australian Open saw him in a shock loss to Denis Istomin in the Round of 64, the French Open a straight sets loss to Dominic Thiem, and Wimbledon, which was to be his last Slam of that year. Cracks had already appeared in his relationship with coach and tennis icon Boris Becker, with whom he had joined forces in 2013; the two had immense success together and appear to have clicked better than any coach Djokovic has had over his career so far. But with the Vajda firing coming hot on the heels of the Becker breakup, speculation about his fitness - and personal problems reached fever pitch. That year, perhaps, the narrative was not so much that other talents – mercurial Australian Nick Kyrgios, and the surprise package of Denis Istomin were beating a giant, but Djokovic was not Djokovic – not the unbeatable Serbian, the mere sight or mention of whom would make an opponent think twice. This was a player at his lowest, whose heart was clearly not in the game any more. At that point, many, many critics had permanently written off Djokovic, wondering if he would ever want to return to the game again, or whether he had the drive he needed to succeed again. Then, he took another decision that shocked enough fans into wondering what he truly was thinking: he hired a new-age ‘life coach’ – former tennis player Pepe Imaz, who preached “peace and love” and might have seemed more at home at a beatnik community in the 1960s or at Woodstock than at the Paris Masters, egging on the World No 1. It was Imaz, not Vajda or Becker, who accompanied Djokovic to that tournament, despite both Vajda and Becker having been around for Djokovic’s French Open breakthrough. That move appears to have had the entire opposite of the intended effect, as the Serbian ace’s rankings plummeted even further. But as all relationships like that go, it ended quickly enough – in early 2018. Djokovic – and perhaps an advisory team – made a concerted effort to try and better his situation at that point in time, and hired Andre Agassi as a one-off coach. Agassi would join Djokovic at the French Open that year, and managed to progress until the quarter-final, where a chance to repeat his breakthrough from the previous year quickly ended. He again made the quarterfinals at Wimbledon that year, then retired with an injury and would eventually sit out the remainder of that season entirely. Grief from his long-troublesome elbow had reached its peak at this point, and so too, it appears, had his mental health issues. It was also around this time that his wife, Jelena, gave birth to the couple’s second child, perhaps giving him some much-needed time away from the court and to recuperate. Djokovic once described Vajda, physiotherapist Miljan Amanovic and fitness coach Gebhard Phil Gritsch as his “family”, but that family relationship was either strained, distant or on the back burner for a significant time. Perhaps that might be due to internal issues Djokovic needed to process, or perhaps it was the doing of Imaz. One may never know. What is clear, though, is that 2018 has seen a changed, nay, transformed Djokovic – at least of late. Early 2018 saw still more changes from Djokovic, who still, it may seem, had not reached the ideal support he needed to be successful. He split with Agassi and Radek Stepanek this April, the first relationship lasting about a year, and the second close to six months. The first ‘breakup’ – decidedly the more high-profile of the two, received only cursory mention in the release the player put out earlier this year. He also had surgery earlier this year on that long-troublesome elbow. But now, his “family” appear to have returned, in perhaps the best move Djokovic has taken since his slump. He rehired Vajda, who has effectively been around since Djokovic was a teenager showing the first murmurings of the success we know today. He also parted ways with Imaz, and since then, on an upward trend from the clay-court season, won Wimbledon for a fourth time, becoming the lowest-ranked player to win the title since Goran Ivanisevic won as a wildcard in 2001. What we all must remember, however, is that even a “slump” or a “low rank” for Djokovic was 21. His failures are still relative to his immense successes, and he has more than established himself as one of the best players the game has ever seen across surfaces. This hard court season, fresh off a straight-sets title win at the Cincinnati Masters over Roger Federer, Djokovic will be nothing short of triumphant as he goes into the finals at Flushing Meadows. Now ranked sixth, Djokovic sees the numbers firmly in his favour as he fights for his third US Open title against Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina. Most importantly, Djokovic has perhaps his biggest weapon of all back – his self-belief.

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