By Charles Bricker
Could this be one of those who-do-I-root-for Davis Cup weekends for Todd Martin, whose coaching client, Novak Djokovic, will be trying to beat up on Martin’s fellow Americans, John Isner and Sam Querrey, this weekend?
“You know, I don’t think it will feel too strange. I guess it’s going to be sort of like Northwestern vs. Michigan State,” said Martin, who grew up in Lansing, Mich. (MSU) but who played two years for Northwestern.”
Martin, whose 15-year ATP career ended in 2004 with eight titles, a couple of Grand Slam runners-up and one Slam semifinal finish, will be watching this first-round tie from his home in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., and, he explained, “I’ll probably be watching a couple of singles matches more keenly than the others.”
ITF officials will pull the draw later this week in Belgrade to determine the order of play. Djokovic, as Serbia’s No. 1, will open against the No. 2 U.S. player Querrey, while he will play the U.S. No. 1, Isner, in Sunday’s opening reverse singles match. Martin will be taking copious notes.
Djokovic hired him last August to supplement his longtime coaching relationship with Marian Vajda and it wasn’t long after it was announced that Serbia would host the U.S. in the 2010 first round that Djokovic asked Todd, a little cheekily, “So, who are you with come March?”
Said Martin this morning from his home: “I tried to plead the fifth.”
With a wife and three young children, Martin stayed home last week while Djokovic was winning the ATP 500 title in Dubai for the second year in a row, but he watched the matches on television, seeing what everyone else saw — Djokovic struggling with the heat, struggling with his suddenly questionable serve but, ultimately, showing the resilience required to win four three-set matches, including a 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 win over Mikhail Youzhny in the final.
When Martin reconnects with Djokovic and Vajda in Indian Wells, Calif., next week, that serve is going to be high on the agenda of things that need to be cleaned up.
Three years ago, the Djokovic serve was technically sound and formidable. Somehow, he’s picked up some glitches, perhaps seeking more power or more spin, and it’s gone off so badly at times that he was half-pushing his second serve in as Youzhny rallied to win the second set last Sunday.
Aside from the obvious change in Djokovic’s service delivery, the numbers are even more telling. In winning Dubai in 2009, he had 32 aces and 10 double faults in five matches. This year, 17 aces and 33 doubles.
In 2009 at Dubai, Djokovic faced 27 break points in five matches and was busted nine times. This year, he faced 44 and was broken 16 times. In his final two matches, he had to defend 16 break points against Marcos Baghdatis and 12 more vs. Youzhny. To his credit, he saved 13 of those points in the semis, but Youzhny broke him six times.
Something is not right.
“The serve is different than a couple years ago,” said Martin. “Sometimes, things change without even trying. You fiddle with something. It can happen relatively by accident. The scary thing is that going back to the technically sound serve he once had might be uncomfortable for him right now.”
That final against Youzhny was interrupted by a long rain at 2-0 in the third set, and it probably helped Djokovic, who was looking pretty gassed near the end of the second. After one very long point, in which Djokovic gutted out a couple of Youzhny volleys to hit a winning forehand pass down the line, he was kneeling down, exhausted and trying to catch some breath. It wasn’t the first time in this match that he seemed seriously affected by the heat.
“His endurance is pretty strong,” said Martin. “You don’t see him struggling in standard conditions. But, for me, it’s a concern that he reacts to the intense heat the way he does. He is taking steps to improving that, but progress needs to be done there.”
If you’re a bottom-line guy, and Djokovic probably is, you don’t shrug off the sketchy play in Dubai, but you give much more weight to the final result. Yes, he didn’t play well. Yes, his serve needs work. But at the end of the week, he was holding the trophy.
“I know what are the holes in my game. The disadvantages, the elements in my game that weren’t working for me throughout the week. I’m well aware of my serve and everything,” said Djokovic. “It’s a very mental game. People don’t realize how much tension you have to go through throughout the match, ups and downs, highs and lows. And it’s all part of the game. It’s not easy.”
But, he added, “Even when I play bad, I know I have the abilities. If you want to call it reserve or secret weapons, you know — running all over the court, trying to fight and play the right shots, trying to look and wait patiently for the chances from my opponent that have been given to me and then use them. Today was another good example of how much I believe in myself and how much I fight till the end.”
Martin and Djokovic are still getting to know each other, in a tennis sense, but Djokovic has often spoken of how much respect he has for his American co-coach and how he thinks Martin can help him get to the net more.
“I look at him and see a guy who can defend and be neutral just as well,” said Martin, who wants to add a third factor — what some call aggressiveness but what Martin prefers to call “being more reactive. When your opponent doesn’t hit a shot well, to be able to react to it in an aggressive way.
“For Novak, it’s pretty simple. He’s got great options that are relatively unrisky. Add a third option that in some ways is more risky. If you come forward, the points are going to be shorter. But if you have three options, you can employ each one when appropriate and employ one or another depending on who you are playing.”
We’re likely to see a less risky Djokovic on clay vs. the U.S. this weekend, at least early in his first match, and no doubt he’ll bring that Dubai resilience to an indoor court with a loud home crowd. But in Isner and Querrey he’s facing a couple of big hitters who have a collective 5-15 record on clay. They’re going to come out smoking service returns if Djokovic’s deliveries don’t get better.
Who knows how Martin is going to react? Djokovic is his guy, but the U.S. is his country.
He never did say who he rooted for in those Big 10 matchups — Michigan State or Northwestern.
Charles Bricker can be reached at nflwriterr@aol.com