Novak Djokovic came to Rome this year hoping to regain his best form and win his sixth Internazionali BNL d’Italia.
Since returning to the tour in February after a three month absence, he had struggled. In Dubai he lost a quarter-final in straight sets to qualifier Jiří Veselý.
Next, in Monte Carlo, Djokovic lost his opening match against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 1-6 in the third.
He also faded in the final of the Serbia Open. After winning the 78 minute second set with his seventh set point, Djokovic “really ran out of gas” in the third set, losing it to Love and handing the title to Andrei Rublev.
Following his loss, Djokovic addressed his many local fans. “I apologise because of the way the third set unfolded. It’s an individual sport, when something fails, the engine can’t work.
“It’s a bit worrisome, I can only assume it’s because of the illness that hit me a few weeks ago. But I have to look at the positives, I’ve won three matches [before the final] from a set down.”
Djokovic seemed to have recovered from his illness by the time he arrived in Madrid. He played well through the early rounds and in his semi against Carlos Alcaraz. It took three tight sets for Alcaraz to win 7-6(5) 5-7 7-6(5), before he went on to easily defeat Alexander Zverev for the title.
Once in Rome, Djokovic was back at his best. He pushed past Aslan Karastev 3 and 2 and Stan Wawrinka 2 and 2.
In a superb quarter final against Félix Auger-Aliassime, Djokovic won 7-5 7-6(1) in 129 minutes.
Photo: Giuseppe Maffia
After winning the first four games of his semi with Casper Ruud, a fire alarm disturbed the players, but Djokovic regained his focus to take the set 6-4. At 3-3 in the second, he broke and went on to win it 6-3. The match became his 1000th tour win.
Stefanos Tsitsipas awaited him in the final.
Tsitsipas had won in Monte Carlo during this clay court swing. In Rome he had a harder road to the final than Djokovic, beating Grigor Dimitrov 6-3 7-5 7-6; Karen Khachanov 4-6 6-0 6-3 and, with the crowd against him, Italian Jannik Sinner 7-6 6-2 in a match that took two hours and 27 minutes to complete.
In his semi against 2nd seed Zverev, Tsitsipas won 4-6 6-3 6-3.
The next day he had to back up all the week’s hard work against the number 1 player in the world. Tsitsipas was ranked number 5 and due to rise to 4 the following day, whatever happened in the final.
The pair had played nine times previously though Djokovic has never lost to Tsitsipas on clay. Memorably, last year in the final of Roland Garros, Tsitsipas was up two sets but Djokovic fought back to prevail 6-7 2-6 6-3 6-2 6-4.
In front of 10,500 spectators at the magnificent Foro Italico, the match started disappointingly for Tsitsipas when Djokovic broke to love.
In third game, Tsitsipas was unable to seize his game point and lost serve again. As it turned out, that game point was the closest he got to holding serve for the whole set.
The first set flew past him in 30 minutes. He won only four of 11 first serve points and also could force no break points, while Djokovic made 100% of first serve returns.
The sudden turn-around in the second set came as a surprise. In a change of tactic, Tsitsipas targeted his opponent’s backhand.
At 2-1 to Tsitsipas, he converted the first of two break points when Djokovic hit into the net. The Serb expressed his frustration to his box and the large Greek contingent in the crowd chanted their player’s name.
An ace got Tsitsipas to 4-1. He had won 12 of the last 14 points.
Djokovic fought off a break point to hold serve for 2-4. Both players then held serve for 5-3 to Tsitsipas. At 30-15 to Djokovic, a long rally ended in his favour when a Tsitsipas ball didn’t make it over the net and gave up a break point. The “Tsitsipas” chant went up again, but their man hit a forehand wide and Djokovic roared.
An easy hold for Djokovic levelled the set at 5-5. Suddenly, Tsitsipas was back to his brilliant best, holding to Love for 6-5. But, he quickly lapsed in the next game, with every return going out or into the net. Djokovic ended it to Love with an ace down the middle. The game had taken just 95 seconds.
For the tiebreak, Tsitsipas needed to find his first serve again, as he had early in the second set. A great serve got him the first point, but Djokovic soon got the mini-break for 4-2 with an ace and stretched it to 5-2 with an unreturnable serve.
The last five points were won through opponent errors. Three out balls by Djokovic brought the score to 5-5. Then two out balls from Tsitsipas gave Djokovic match point and the championship.
Despite the Tsitsipas revival in the second set, he hit only eight winners for the match compared to 24 for Djokovic.
Photo: Antonietta Baldassarre/ Insidefoto
The champion won without losing a set for the tournament. After the match, he explained, “I pleasantly surprised myself, I can say, even though I had a clear game plan and strategy coming into the match…I did play a perfect set. No doubt about it.
“It was a little bit tight at the beginning of the second for me and he used it. And at this level, one or two points can turn a match around and he was back in the game – 4-1 up for him and 30-40, the match could have easily gone into a third set but I somehow managed to find the right shots at the right time in the second set…[In] the tiebreak, I guess I was just an inch better, maybe calmer.
“I’ve been building my form the last couple of weeks. Like the previous years, I knew that my best shape on the clay is usually coming around Rome time. Couldn’t be a better time of year, coming into Roland Garros with a title in this wonderful tournament.”
At the trophy presentation, Tsitsipas acknowledged the presence of his Greek family and thanked them for coming over to watch him in the final. To the winner, he added, “Congratulations, my friend…I really hope I can get to your level one day. It’s very inspiring.”
When it was his turn to speak, Djokovic addressed the crowd in Italian, one of his 11 languages. He said that Rome is a place which has given him a lot of confidence in his tennis over the years and he always feels at home when he’s competing in the city.
Almost as an aside, he finished by mentioning that his son Stefan was playing his first competition match that day and wished him good luck.
Title photo by IPA