Cheryl, Nole must have read your "Why I changed my mind about N. DJ.". Ever since he's been on the incline. Most importantly he realized that his behaviour on the court and all that acting is only distracting him from becoming what he wishes even more than to be just "liked" - to be No 1. And he realized that "good effort" and grunting doesn't count.

I heard from the people who are close to Nole in Belgrade that he has hired and has been working for a while with a new therapist who is obviously doing a great job with his mental toughness...that was I think what was missing from his past performances...to be honest, Nole is not a much different player than he was before...but this time around, he is more focused, he has continuity, he does not give up or collapses mentally...that is his improvement...he has this anger management thing, which we were able to see against Rafa...when he was missing the shots and Rafa was driving him around the court in the first and part of the second set, Nole yelled loudly, was screaming his brains out and got the negative energy out...his parents are no longer accompanying him at the matches...he feels less pressure, less nervousness without them around...I think another great player, Murray, who is currently experiencing serious lapses and maybe dealing with the same sort of problems as Nole did, could learn from this...

i'm really, really pleased to see nole finally showing us consistently what he's capable of and fulfilling his potential. i hope he and rafa become new rivals from this season as one player domintaing is not exciting even if that's my rafa. my wish is for rafa to end the year as no. 1 and nole as no. 2 :)

most definitely a freight train and deservedly given how hard he's worked. well done novak.

I think Nole has improved on his fitness. It seems to me that his stamina has also improved, so much so that he can run all day and chase after every ball and still can go the distance, eg his USO match against Fed last year. Nole always has a good hard court game, best after Fed. Right now he has added great defence into his game, to me, he's playing like the Rafa of 2008-early 2009, strong defence and offence. He's running a lot more nowadays, playing like a wall, his opponents don't have much success attacking him as he is hitting everything back at
his opponents. In fact I find him running more than Rafa nowadays, when Rafa is always thinking of moving up to the net to finish the point. I hope to see a top form Murray vs a top for Nole at Miami, it will be interesting to see how Nole deal with Murray's junk ball style of play. (I exclude that AO final match as Murray clearly was not at his best in that match).

I agree with you, luckystar. One has only to look at the US Open final. He was still dead tired in that match from the Federer epic. He must have worked hard in the off-season.

I also think that he's brimming with confidence and that can do nothing but help.

I wouldn't be so sure about Nole being fitter than before...he may not have those breathing problems though, although there were no real heats these three months...but when playing Rafa he showed some serious signs of tiredness...if it was not for Rafa who dropped his level in the second significantly, the match would have been more even and although Nole may have been the winner even then, it would have been a close match...Nole has had easy matches, not required to run a lot and what is most important he had a lot of easy points on his good serve...with Rafa, there were several games he was not able to return Rafa's second serve...he did not have so much running in that match...are you telling me that Nole was not fit in that semifinal Madrid match with Rafa? Or are you going to say that he lost to Rafa in the USO final because of his fitness? No, they were even in Madrid. It was only that Rafa was mentally stronger than Nole and Nole lost in the end...in USO, Rafa was simply better player mainly due to his great serving... I do not question Nole's fitness, don't get me wrong...all I am saying is that he is as fit as before, maybe slightly better, only now he is serving much better and he has huge confidence and mental strength...he is no longer afraid of both Fed or Rafa...

^^^ natashao

I believe fitness DID play a factor in the USO loss. He would have lost anyway, Rafa was just playing to well to be beaten in that match...but make no mistake, Nole WAS tired from that 5-set Federer match.

Actually what I meant was that in that USO semifinal, he could go toe to toe with Fed for five sets, so his fitness was not bad, not forgetting he had another long match in his first round against Troicki. I do feel that Nole did looked tired in the fourth set of the USO final. However whether he was tired or not, it was obvious that he couldn't beat Rafa on that day. As I've mentioned before in some earlier threads, if there was rain delay, I feel that Rafa would have won in straight sets.

Nole had played many matches this year, 4-5 Hopman cup matches and 18 competitive matches, he surely would feel more tired than Rafa, who played 17 matches.

To be honest, Nole is playing this well mostly because of the hard work he has put in - but I do feel a lot of it has to do with confidence and how he feels about himself. The changing of racquets wasn't the best decision to make and he was constantly given a bad time during the 08/09 seasons by the media - who include some of the worst holier than thou bigots you can imagine.

cheryl, if you _have_ to write an article about Novak Djokovic, it would be nice if you didn't add an asterisk to each of his big wins. So Roger had Mono at the AO 2008 semi. Djokovic has lost out due to illness at Slam semis as well, do we automatically assume that the eventual winner didn't deserve his victory? What about Rafa bludgeoning Fed at the French that same year, does that also come with an asterisk?

It's true that Rafa served at 25% in set 2 (only, not set 3) at the IW final. Everyone has an off day. Why does it have to come up _every_ time the Djokovic victory is mentioned? No one knows about serving woes better than Novak Djokovic and I think a blog about his current success should at least mention how he overcame that to get to this point, rather than being up Djana and the 2008 mono again. Novak has been trying _very_ hard to erase some of that from public memory.

And if we're talking about "off days" and "mono" for Fedal, we could also take into consideration ridiculously easy draws and scheduling, and add asterisks to a few of their titles. But we don't, and shouldn't, because a win is a win is a win.

....and, he does too have a weapon. his backhand is one of the best in the ATP!

Thanks stu, for stating so accurately what I was also thinking.

mriiidula, r u in the bracket? R u in a Simon group? suddenly found myself taking him incredibly deep! U must've been sending thought waves my way :)

deuce, i did too! both simon and gasq! good draw for the Frenchmen!

I don't thing mentioning the circumstances of the final is meant to diminish Nole's victory in any way. Rafa had a bad day and Nole took advantage of it. It happens, and the victory is just as well deserved since Nole put himself into the final in the first place. I think the only reason it's worth mentioning is so that people don't come to the quick conclusion that Nole is now unbeatable and not even Roger or Rafa at their best can stop him. The men's game is as competitive as ever, and anything is still possible. In Miami it all starts over. In a hard court all 3 top men are at a very close level.

deuce, yes i am! i've corrently got one point since i predicted ivan dodig to come through ha! haha, although i must admit, i have simon losing to roddick :/

grafight, i would completely understand if these topics came up when the final match was being discussed, and they did. when i saw the title of this blog, however, i got the impression that it was about Novak's achievements. in the 30+ lines of text, less than 5 are complimentary to Djokovic. i'm not forcing Cheryl to write a gushing blog about Novak, but I do think the title is misleading.

the article feels like it was written three years ago.annoying family, heat, no weapons, mono etc its great to see there is nothing negative to write about about Novak today so we have to dig out some dirt

I didn't call Nole's family annoying. If you find them annoying, that's your fault, not mine. I added that because though it was said 3 years ago, it's true now.

And to whoever accused me of explaining away "all" of Nole's wins...Really? Every one? Dubai? 2011 Australian Open? You guys take offense too easily.

Cherylmurray, many are repeating the notion that Rafa in his IW finals against Djokovic had a first serve percentage of 25% or so in the 2nd and 3rd sets. Actually, he had first serve percentages of 25% in 2nd set and 45 % in the 3rd set. I don't think you can say 45% is 25% or so. The reason his serve appeared awful in the 3rd set is that Djoko was thrashing Rafa's 2nd serve.
Stats: First serve percentage in 1st, 2nd, 3rd sets and in the match as a whole: 57%,25%,45% and in the match:42%
Percentage of second serve points won in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd sets and the match as a whole:80%,67%,25% and in the match:57%
The match was lost in the 2nd set. If Rafa had good 1st serve percentage then, he would have held his serve and won the 2nd set and the match. But, because he served so many 2nd serves in that set, Djoko began to read that serve and won won 75% of the points on the return of Rafa's second serve in the 3rd set.

"cheryl, if you _have_ to write an article about Novak Djokovic, it would be nice if you didn't add an asterisk to each of his big wins."

If this was Murray and not Djokovic all these * wouldn't have been mentioned! There is always some excuse when Novak wins, an easy draw, tired or mono sick opponent, etc... . it is _never_ Novak it is always _someone_ across the net. Poor.

stu, I was inclined to comment about the excuse of the century - Fed's mono, but I decided to let it go earlier, instead hinting at media bigotry. Federer would have been beaten, mono or no mono - he was simply outplayed that match if you watch those highlights. There are players who have pulled through with much worse than the so-called mono Federer had, so I don't think it should be the main talking point in Nole's victory when he played so well three years ago.

There should be an asterix for each of Federer's GS wins against Roddick - its quite clear that Roddick was asphyxiating every single time.

^^^^ LOL at Roddick choking. :D

I am not saying that on that day, Novak wouldn't have even beaten a healthy Fed. He may have...my point was more that after that moment, Djokovic went back to playing third fiddle for years. Now, if that says something different to you than it does to me, so be it.

I hesitated before responding too, samprallica...but realized that other people reading this blog who don't follow tennis as obsessively as we do would get the wrong impression about Novak's recent successes. I agree with you, the true storyline is how he found his way back after a long, visible struggle with his racquet, health issues and negative press. But for that I guess we will have to read Tignor.

Sorry for completely killing the discussion on this article with my complaints!

mriiidula, And I've got Simon taking out Roddick......you of little faith...;)
stu, I've got Gasquet losing quite early on, cannot take that man seriously as a winner:(

deuce - i'd loved to be proved wrong! besides, what do i know, i had davy going to round 3 :/

deuce - you may very well be right with Simon. He has the sort of game that drives Roddick nuts. All Simon will have to do is keep the ball in play and Roddick will take care of the rest for him.

mriiidula - I think we can now officially label Davydenko a trainwreck. He may be on the verge of retirement. If he keeps losing like this, he's going to end up being forced to qualify for tournaments.

To the other Nole fans - I honestly didn't intend for this blog to diminish his accomplishments. I really WAS thinking that even though everyone rolled their eyes at Dijana in 2008, she was eventually right.

nole fans you'll probably like this one better as i did:

http://tinyurl.com/4nlemcs

No offense taken Cheryl...
Maybe Nole's fans looks a little bit over sensitive... but try to understand us...
I really don't know what does he has to more that ppl realize how great player he is...
And comments about Nole are so disgusting ( not yours)...
Let me give you example... Roger Federer official site..
"bladerunner66
03/22/2011 | 05:50 PM

Rog, Your are the man, the Big Man always. Forget the Serb, he's an uncouth poseur. A member of a sub-human species: a knuckle dragger."

Thanks RFZR... yes... I likes it :))

Hmmmm... "liked" :(

thanks rfzr :D
i found stats in that article that i didn't know about:
"He leads the tour this year in percentage of second-serve points won (60 percent) and in percentage of return games won (a whopping 44 percent)."

I also like Steve Flink's IW final analysis on the tennischannel. I think he does justice to both Nole and Rafa in that match...

thanks rfzr, that was certainly interesting! and quite enjoyable too ;)

stu - 44% return games won, such a high stat is prob due to the number of bagels he's already served up. i dont see that happening too often in the future!

cheryl - i guess, but its sad to see this. i guess its age and all those injuries that finally caught up with him. he's a lovely player to watch, not very flashy, but i like his modesty and his quiet demenour on court. quite a change from djokovic!

deuce - hows it going so far for you?

mriiidula, you just beat me on the draw challenge! i'm tennisu.

stu - we are both tied! now that i look at my picks, i wonder what i was thinking..

sigh, no weapons? i see the most gorgeous FHs and BHs DTL.

mriiidula, am stuck in the middle, two points bhind stu, I think. Scuppered by Andy, Warwinka, Berdych etc etc ;) Only Rafa can save me now :)

cherylmurray , 3/24/11 6:07 PM 'I think we can now officially label Davydenko a trainwreck'

What a sad epitaph to his career but I cant help but agree his future is looking bleak. If ever there was a player who should have won more titles it is Davy but boy did he provide some cliff-hanger matches in his time! I am glad for him he tasted the glory of lifting the WTF cup. Whatever else is said or written about him when he does retire he will always have that 2009 moment to cherish.

I don't think Davy is a train wreck, there's still the clay season to come and Davy has zero point to defend until Wimbledon. He's a competent player on clay and I think he can reach at least the QFs of some Masters events. He still can look forward to the clay court events like Hamburg and others after Wimbledon to build up some points. I think he may end the year near the top twenty or even in the top twenty. What he needs to do is pick the right tournaments to play and not overdoing it and stress his wrist again. I'm positive that a good player like him won't go away just like that.

Davy hasn't made nearly as much money as other top players, so he probably needs to go on playing as long as possible anyway.

Roger Federer,s 3 defeats this year have all come against Djokovic. I am not sure Djokovic can keep pace with Federer. He,s having a exellent year by most people,s standards. it,s just the 3 defeats to Djokovic that have soured it.

some thoughts on nole's return game:

http://tinyurl.com/5rd9u35

^^thank you :)

Yup. You nailed. A Freight Traing

Yup. You nailed it. A Freight Train

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/9613087

This makes sense to me..........interesting. Well done Nole for finding the key to your full potential.....................just don't get any ideas about my guy this clay court season!!!!