The first victory in Cincinnati completed the Masters collection. Novak Djokovic celebrated “one of the greatest moments of my tennis life”.
The moment Novak Djokovic once completely lost track of the Masters spectacle in Cincinnati was of course neatly documented in the virtual worlds of the Internet. It was Friday night, after his quarter-final match against Milos Raonic, when the Serb entered the huge parking lot in front of the tennis court and suddenly could not find his rental car in the darkness. Onlookers filmed how Djokovic cheered and shouted “Mamma mia, where is my car” and then wandered around the grounds for a while. Finally, the tennis star received the right tip from an attentive passer-by in the drizzle at night, headed for the car with his helper troop, thanked him high and holy and roared off.
On the Centre Court, Djokovic had no comparable orientation problems – in a week that finally gave him one of the greatest and most outstanding moments of his career: the revived “Djoker”, resurrected to his former glory, did not just win the next big cup on Sunday evening, 6-4, 6-4 over his eternal rival Roger Federer. As the title hero of Cincinnati, Djokovic was the first player in history to win all the Masters titles at least once, from his first victories in Miami in 2007 and at the Canadian Open to this success on August 19, 2018 in the city on the Ohio River – he was now the “Master of the Masters”, the champion of all Masters.
“This is one of the greatest moments in my tennis life,” said Djokovic (31), who had previously lost five finals at this last top event before the US Open, three of them also against Federer. Djokovic, as historically conscious as his great rivals Federer and Nadal, had something really significant ahead of the two Titans for the second time – after winning four Grand Slam titles in a row in 2015 and 2016, as the first professional in the modern era of this sport. “It’s a tremendous achievement to have won all these tournaments. You shouldn’t talk about my mistakes today, but about Novak,” Federer said, as always the gentleman in defeat.
Djokovic’s triumph, together with the Wimbledon victory just over a month ago, crowned a remarkable comeback at the top of the world. After his French Open victory in 2016, the Serb had temporarily left the elite group with problems of motivation and personal crises and had even sat on false prophets like the infamous Spanish esoteric guru Pepe Imaz. It got lonely around Djokovic – literally. First Boris Becker left him, then Djokovic dismissed the rest of his sworn support crew. In 2017, injury problems on the overloaded right arm were added and the Serb had to undergo elbow surgery. When the 2018 season began, he was only 14th in the ATP world rankings, and things didn’t get much better at the first tournaments either. “It’s been a great roller coaster ride lately,” said Djokovic the night of his victory in Cincinnati, “I’m glad I found the fire inside me again. The bite it takes to win big tournaments.”
He had managed the turnaround very simply – with the return to his trusted companions, to his tennis family. In Cincinnati, too, they were back on the edge of the tennis stage, Marijan Vajda, the long-time coach. Or Gebhard Gritsch, nutrition and fitness expert from Austria. Djokovic had fired her at the lowest point of the crisis and then humbly ordered her back to his side in the spring of 2018, but he did not talk long about his errors and confessions, admitted to himself “huge mistakes”: “In the meantime I have completely lost my way, I have no longer seen who is important to me”.
Djokovic is now also the favorite competitor for the US Open, ahead of rivals Federer and Nadal or an ambitious outsider like Alexander Zverev. “It’s almost a little unreal to be back at this level,” Djokovic said, “I didn’t always think I could do it again.”