The long wait for a women’s final at Wimbledon is over, with Garbine Muguruza reversing Eugenie Bouchard’s upset at the U.S. Open in 2015. It’s the first time in 43 years that a Wimbledon final features the winners of the previous two majors. There are several threads in that story, in which Serena Williams plays a bigger role than just throwing herself into it. In between the two is a terrible stumble for Djokovic, but no matter what you think of him right now, the 2016 U.S. Open champ’s path to greatness was an impressive one.
Born in the Pristina section of Belgrade, Novak Djokovic was raised in the suburbs of the Serbian capital. He was encouraged to play tennis by his mother, a highly accomplished athlete himself, and his father, a state doctor and amateur tennis player. When he began picking up rackets, he was soon the class clown at the club’s semi-formal tennis events.
He began to punch his parents into submission when he became more seriously interested in studying at the age of 13. It was difficult for him to concentrate after that. Tennis was not on his mind, or even on his face. “Some of my greatest tennis is in the memories of my short life,” he once said.
After getting scouted by Nike, he became a junior star within six months, beating five of the country’s top eight players in just one season. But Djokovic, whose father spent considerable time on tour with his brother, Boris, and not so much on tennis terms, relied too much on fellow amateurs. “I would say right now that our generation is better than our parents,” he once said. “We could have better than them.”
He turned professional when he was 16, at which point he became relatively unknown to the world. He was unimpressive to begin with, ranking outside the top 300 in men’s tennis, but a burst of form helped him push his way into the top 10 by the time he was 18. In 2008, he won the Sydney International, beating a succession of top players. Within a month he became world No. 1.
Novak Djokovic didn’t fare so well at Wimbledon after Wimbledon. After finding his stride, he enjoyed his best run at the U.S. Open, winning two sets in the final against Roger Federer and also beating his top rival in the Wimbledon semi-finals, Rafael Nadal. When he lost the final to Federer at Flushing Meadows, in what was perhaps the greatest upset in Grand Slam history, Djokovic was exhausted, perhaps plagued by fatigue and, having overcome the injury bug, just beginning to tire himself out. But his victory at the French Open two months later was to be the springboard to the top of the world rankings, and it was his first Grand Slam title outside the U.S.
In the second half of 2015, Djokovic lost a number of top-level matches – including a five-set loss in the Australian Open quarter-finals to Britain’s Andy Murray – for the first time in his career. He fell from his perch at the top of the world rankings, too, reaching a low of seventh by the end of 2015. By the start of 2016, Djokovic had returned to the top three, but all was not back to normal.
Muguruza’s victory over Rafa Nadal may have come at the cruellest possible time for Djokovic, who is coming off two straight defeats. To raise his game, he underwent intense recovery therapy, followed by an intensive, if abbreviated, regimen of intensive training – he cancelled a scheduled break, returning to action in the Australian Open in January 2017. He won both that tournament and the French Open, but was still not fully back from his ailments.
In the Masters 1000 event in Indian Wells, he was beaten by Stan Wawrinka, his first defeat to the Swiss by a winner since the 2009 U.S. Open final. At the semi-final stage in Miami, he was beaten by Federer, who subsequently knocked him out of the Australian Open.
Djokovic has a good chance of coming back in the best shape when the new season starts. At the end of the 2016 season, he won his maiden Wimbledon title. In the weeks before Wimbledon, he was unhappy with himself, at the start of his second tournament back from injury and as far removed from his status as the world’s No. 1 player. But after losing to Muller in straight sets in the second round, he immediately thought of a way to win the tournament. The coaching