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WIMBLEDON, England — Robbed of a tantalizing thunderstorm forecast for Friday, Wimbledon went ahead anyway and found itself cruising to a tantalizing thunderstorm forecast for Sunday. Lost his potential men’s semi-final between Nick Kyrgios and Rafael Nadal when Nadal had to retire on Thursday night, but won the men’s final between Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic when Djokovic dug into his pile of talent and produced one of the best.
It will be Djokovic, a superhuman problem solver, against Kyrgios, a super noisy problem maker. You can see the emotional outbursts from here.
The final arrangements came when Djokovic, in Friday’s only semi-final, unraveled himself and Cameron Norrie, as he unravels himself and everyone there again and again. Just as he fell behind in the quarter-finals to Yannick Sinner here, in the final to Matteo Berretini last year, in the French final in 2021 to Stefanos Tsitsipas and so on, he told his nerves to quit and produced his usual array of stunning shots to win 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 against a player ranked 12th in the world.
Rafael Nadal withdrew from Wimbledon due to an abdominal injury
Out of his 68 Grand Slam tournaments, he has managed to appear in the finals 32 times.
“I mean, every match, every Grand Slam that I have to play at this stage of my career,” the 35-year-old said, “there’s a lot on the line.”
This time the line will shake.
The first Grand Slam final for the 27-year-old Kyrgios, who has been in the sport for a long time, will introduce Djokovic, first, to the traumatizing Kyrgios serve on grass.
“On grass I would imagine it’s even harder to read his serve,” Djokovic said, “and return because there are so many free points.” That “puts extra pressure on your serve.” And: “He’s got great hands.” It will feature one of the wackier little stats in sports: Kyrgios’ 2-0 record against Djokovic, with both matches taking place within two weeks: March 2, 2017 in Acapulco, Mexico and March 15, 2017 .in Indian Wells, California
Djokovic did not win any of the four sets. He found the serve untraceable in the thin desert air of eastern California. He saw several aces go by – 25 the first time, 14 the second – and then never saw Kyrgios again in any practice or match after that.
“I think it’s going to be a close-margin game,” Djokovic said. “Hopefully I can be at the level I want, then really it’s a mental game at the end, who stays tougher and calmer in the crucial moments.”
As he tries to decide enough to collect a 21st Grand Slam title, his opponent will reach a point he thought he would never reach even with the talent everyone has noticed since his teenage days, a talent that often is associated with the word “dangerous”. Kyrgios will arrive as a player who is known to play better against better players. He will arrive after planning how to play Nadal – they were 1-1 here – as, he said on Friday, “I really wanted to see how this third chapter would go” and “I’m sure in the end everyone wanted to see us go to war there. That’s all, except possibly the tennis balls.
Pioneer makes Wimbledon final and happiness is everywhere
He arrives having spent two weeks more in his rented house and less in pubs or on his phone than in previous years, all of which he sees as appropriate.
“I felt like earlier in my career, I didn’t realize that those days off and training were so important,” he said. Or, as Djokovic said, “Honestly, as a tennis fan, I’m glad he’s in the final because he has so much talent.”
He arrives with some wisdom from the 2022 Australian Open men’s doubles, which he won with fellow Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis over fellow Australians Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell. He arrives at his 30th Grand Slam with some upgraded understanding of Grand Slam pace, long after he, ranked 40th, faced Britain’s Paul Jubb, ranked 219th, in the first round in which Kyrgios beat him 7-5 in the fifth set and also spat in the direction of a trolling witness.
“You could be four points away from losing [in the first round],” Kyrgios said, “then 11 days later you’re in the final, so…”
“Ride the waves,” said a man used to creating them and being tossed by them.
And then he arrives after a “shocking dream” on Thursday night – meaning a bad one – and “so much anxiety” and “feeling so nervous already”, although he can go all the way back to childhood in Canberra and wonder. “Yeah, I think it’s just funny,” he said, “because, like, I don’t think I should be somebody like me. As I see [a photo he posted online of himself as a child]I grew up in Canberra, the courts I trained on were terrible and now I have the chance to play in the Wimbledon final.”
Now he’s found someone who solves the mess as well as anyone who ever solved the mess.
“For me,” Djokovic said, “it’s maybe on a different level because I have to deal with different things that are off the court as well, the crowd is maybe on my opponents’ side most of the time. It’s something I’ve been used to throughout my career. The more you experience such situations, not the better you feel, just the more prepared you are. You know what to expect.
“It’s always about handling your own nerves better than maybe your opponent’s. The internal battle is always the biggest. In practice sessions where you don’t have crowds or expectations, you play great. Then you come into the match and you realize it’s amazing how the whole game can fall apart” — like in the first set on Friday — “really just because you’re feeling tense, then not a single shot is working right. Your legs are static and slow.
“Something happens in the game, then suddenly everything is completely different and you’re flying. Everything flows. All the time there are these, shall we say, challenges that you face internally, but also externally. It really is a constant battle. All these obstacles you have to face. I really think it’s an amazing exercise to stay in the moment because being present is, I feel, something that’s the ultimate state that an athlete is looking for, because then you’re able to, I guess, tune out or shut out certain things and distractions and really only focus on the next point. This is the area everyone is talking about that is really hard to get to but very easy to lose.
However, he often lives there.
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