ATP Finals – Turin – At the Masters, for Novak Djokovic, there is a problem

This is at best a curiosity, at worst an anomaly. One of those things that, at first glance, seems almost inexplicable. Novak Djokovic is undoubtedly the best player in the world in recent years. Indoors, since the decline and then the retirement of Roger Federer, he probably has no equivalent. However, it has been seven years since the Serbian champion no longer lifted the trophy at the Masters, whether in London or Turin.

Until the 2015 break, the ATP Finals were “his” tournament. A first coronation in 2008, then four more consecutively from 2012 to 2015, beating Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer three times in the final. Since then, nothing more. Djokovic hasn’t won any of the last six editions and only reached the final twice in 2016 and 2018, with defeats to Andy Murray and Alexander Zverev. The Serb is therefore still stuck at five wins, still a stone’s throw from the absolute record held by Federer, when everyone thought he was going to swallow it.

In search of a final exclamation mark

There are of course objective reasons for this end of series. Major meeting of the end of the season, the Masters has often recovered stars on the tangent. What he could digest until his early thirties, “Nole” may have more difficulty managing. It is also less “clutch” at the ATP Finals than it can be, for example, in the Grand Slam. Four times semi-finalist in the most recent period, he never managed to go all the way. The fact remains that he has reached the final in his last four appearances at Bercy, placed just before in the calendar. In the thick of it in Paris, exhausted at the Masters? The argument has its limits.

This year, the assumption will not hold. Novak Djokovic has never approached the Masters tournament with such physical freshness. Deprived of the Australian Open, the US Open and a good gaggle of other tournaments, particularly in North America, the “Djoker” has only 44 matches under his arm when he lands in Piedmont. . “To be successful at the ATP Finals, you have to be physically well and fresh if possible“, he mentioned after his final lost on the wire at the Accor Arena against Holger Rune. This is his case this time.

Even if he failed in the quest for a sixth trophy in eastern Paris, all the lights are green for Djokovic. He has only lost two matches in an official tournament since Roland-Garros, his level of play is probably the highest in recent times among the eight participants in the Masters, and he has two good reasons for wanting to lift the trophy at all costs at Turin: to put an end to its astonishing scarcity and to end this funny year on an exclamation point, as if to remind us that, whatever the ATP rankings say, the ultimate reference on the circuit is still him .

Heavy entry

“I’m playing very good tennis right now and I’m confident and optimistic (for the Masters, editor’s note)he assures. Of course, every match is like a final there, there are no easy matches. I also know that the conditions are different from those of Bercy. With altitude, the ball flies a little more. The surface is rather fast. You will have to serve well. We’ll see. Anyway, at this stage of my career, I want to win every tournament I enter..” But this one perhaps even more than another.

So, will he finally return to his norm of the early 2010s and get Federer’s record? “Last year, I played very good tennis, he wishes to recall. I was in the semi-finals, a very close match against Zverev, the eventual winner.”

In view of the draw, he will not be entitled to a soft start. Placed in the red group, Novak Djokovic inherited from Andrey Rublev but also and above all from Stefanos Tsitsipas and Daniil Medvedev, respectively winners of the tournament in 2019 and 2020 and, with Félix Auger-Aliassime, perhaps the two biggest outsiders of this 2022 edition. But if he comes out of this first phase, a fortiori at the top of his group, we will have to hang on to stop him. Unless a new grain of sand comes to derail this scenario again…