The Final Peak

As of mid-season 2010, Novak Djokovic of Serbia scarcely seemed a serious contender to claim any Grand Slam titles within the foreseeable future. His second serve was dodgy, his forehand was shank-prone, he was exhibiting a disturbing trend toward passivity from the baseline, and his long history of on-court illness-and-injury treatments and retirements had inspired abundant conjecture to the effect that he was either a hypochondriac or a drama queen. All told, the standard of his results had receded since his then-watershed moment at the 2008 Australian Open, and the question hanging over him was not, as it had once been, whether he could advance his ranking further, but rather whether he could so much as maintain the world's-number-three position to which he had so long been wedded.

One year later, all of these faults appear to have vanished without a trace; his service game is rock-solid, he reliably delivers the most consistent and assertive baseline play in the business, he has neither called forth a trainer nor retired from a match even once to my knowledge over the intervening 12 months, and he stands now potentially mere hours from the fulfillment of his lifelong ambition to attain the coveted number-one ranking. His final obstacle will come in the form of Switzerland's Roger Federer, whom he is set to face in the French Open semifinals Friday night. To depose a legend such as Federer- who is the all-time Grand Slam record holder and last man to defeat Djokovic, that coming at the World Tour Finals last November- on a stage such as this would seem a nigh impossible task to most, but Djokovic has already performed the feat on three past occasions, including each of the last two Grand Slam events, and has defeated Federer three times this season alone.

One cannot rule out altogether the possibility that Roger Federer, even in the latter stages of his career, will find some of his old magic now, when he needs it most, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the outcome of this contest will, in all likelihood, rest ultimately on the racket of the Serb. It may be pointed out that Djokovic has, in the past, shown tension when faced with the opportunity to reach a new high-water-mark in the rankings, as in 2009 when he failed in his first three attempts to claim the number two ranking, including once in a shocking upset to unheralded Finn Jarko Nieminen- yet, as I have described, Djokovic seems by now to have long since risen to a new and higher plane, casting off like an infant's swaddling cloths the physical and mental constraints which once seemed to bind him. This, then, is the moment of truth; will we see a glimmer of Djokovic the man on the red clay at Roland Garros, or will Djokovic the tennis demi-God complete his ascent to the summit of Mount Olympus?