This time, it was not quite the health walk announced, far from it. In any case, not during the first two sets. Led two sets to nothing by his compatriot Laslo Djere, Novak Djokovic then did Novak Djokovic: a locker room break, a mental “reset” in front of the mirror and a demonstration (or almost) during the last three sets, in which he will have evolved at a level unparalleled with that displayed so far, to win 4-6, 4-6, 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 in 3:45 and climb to the round of 16 of the US Open , this Saturday morning. It will be against the amazing Croatian qualifier Borna Gojo.
Can we really say that he was afraid? A little anyway, because it is never trivial to find yourself trailing two sets to nothing in a Grand Slam. But we have the impression that with Novak Djokovic, it is still much less dangerous than for another. Just as we had the impression that this type of match, we had already seen thousands of them. As soon as he broke at the start of the 3rd set, on the return from his “toilet break”, everyone had more or less understood: for Djere, the party was over.
In the first two rounds, however, the younger of the two Serbs had been amazing. Serving well, attacking well, he had limited his margin of error as much as possible when his compatriot was surprisingly imprecise (36 unforced errors in total, half of them in these first two rounds). Apart from his serve, bleeding from start to finish (12 aces, 77% of points won behind his first), it was not Djokovic “prime”, far from it, while Djere was probably playing the match of his life, at the image of this magnificent backhand passing:
A shot hailed by Djokovic: Djere’s one-handed backhand passing that hits the mark
And the Djokovic machine started
And then, everything changed in the light of the 3rd set, or more exactly a little before, in the locker room. “I had a little chat with myself in front of the mirror to re-motivate myself,” explained “Djoko” after his success at the microphone of Brad Gilbert. “At that time, I was really not happy with myself, the score and my game. I absolutely had to find a way to revive myself, and I succeeded.”
And how: from the 3rd set, in which he only committed 5 unforced errors, the world number 2 laid the barbed wire and sent a clear message to his opponent: he would not pass. In fact, Djere then began to give a lot, especially on the forehand side. Faced with the multiplicity of exchanges which often remained long and intense, he also seemed to be in the grip of a physical pump in the 5th set, when Djoko frolicked better and better.
The point of awakening! The break of the 3rd set which revived Djokovic against Djere
Djere, however, never gave up and, by dint of bravery, experienced a final burst in the 5th set, to prolong the party for a few minutes. Broken from the start, he held until 5-3 and got a break point in this game. He missed it with a setback that remained in the band, when he had launched the exchange well. Huge missed opportunity. Four points later, it was over.
Djokovic: “At 2 sets zero, I had a little discussion with myself in the mirror…”