By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY
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Novak Djokovic celebrated after winning the 2012 Australian Open.
It had required five sets and the longest Grand Slam men’s singles final in history, but Djokovic finally managed to win his third straight Grand Slam singles title on a Sunday night that turned into a Monday morning in Melbourne. Djokovic did it by defeating the same determined but ultimately frustrated opponent, Rafael Nadal, in an Australian Open final that will rank as one of the greatest matches in the long history of tennis.
Djokovic, the No. 1 seed, required a record 5 hours and 53 minutes to defeat the second-seeded Nadal 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-7, 7-5.
But numbers, and there were plenty of them, do not sum up the depth and emotional power of this marathon: the latest joint effort in a golden era in the men’s game that has repeatedly matched strength against strength.
For now, there can be no doubt that Djokovic, the bristle-haired 24-year-old from Serbia, is the strongest. In the last seven months, he and Nadal have played for the trophy at Wimbledon, the United States Open and now the Australian Open. Djokovic has won every final and has now beaten Nadal, the Spaniard who is one of the supreme competitors in the sport’s long history, seven times in a row over all.
Djokovic had to rally on Sunday to defend his title in Melbourne but after an edgy first set, he gradually found his intimidating range, even though there was so much more tennis to play.
It was third Australian Open title and the fifth Grand Slam singles title for the elastic-limbed Djokovic, and he has now won four of the last five major tournaments contested, the only loss in that stretch coming in the semifinals of last year’s French Open against Roger Federer.
But since taking the reins of the men’s game last year, Djokovic has never been pushed quite like this. In contrast, their grueling four-set final at last year’s United States Open, seemed much closer to a short story.
The longest Grand Slam final in history until this one was the 1988 final at the United States Open, in which Mats Wilander defeated Ivan Lendl in 4 hours and 54 minutes. This one went for very nearly an hour longer and the winner never seemed clear until Djokovic’s final shot, an inside-out forehand, bounced twice for a winner.
“We made history tonight,” Djokovic said to Nadal in his victory speech. “Unfortunately there couldn’t be two winners tonight, but I wish you all the best for this season, and I wish and I hope that we will have many more matches like this, many more finals.”
Nadal, the first man to lose three consecutive Grand Slam singles finals, could be forgiven for not sharing the sentiment, but he was gracious in defeat.
“I never will forget this match ever, because of you,” Nadal told the crowd in Melbourne Park. “Even if I lost it was something really, really special to me.”
Nadal appeared to be on his way to losing this match in the fourth set, when he fell behind 0-40 on his serve in the eighth game of the fourth set. But he boldly hit and hustled his way out of that tight spot to keep Djokovic from serving for the match, and that effort coincided with the arrival of light rain.
After a 10-minute delay to close the arena’s retractable roof , the two rivals resumed the baseline hostilities indoors, and Nadal eventually prevailed in a tiebreaker to force a fifth set, the first fifth set in their 30 matches against each other.
It would transform an already exceptional match into something rarer, and there will be ample debate in various time zones about where this final ranks in the historical pecking order, which includes mutual masterpieces like Bjorn Borg’s five-set victory over John McEnroe in the 1980 Wimbledon final or Nadal’s five-set victory over Federer on the same patch of grass in the 2008 final.
The fifth set of this marathon did not require quite as many games to resolve as either of those epics, but the intensity and tension was extraordinary. Djokovic, who has been struggling with breathing problems in the latter stages of this tournament, staggered after returns in the fifth game and actually collapsed to the blue court after his errant backhand put a brutal end to a 31-shot rally on the first point of the ninth game.
“That’s the first knockdown I’ve ever seen in tennis,” said Jim Courier, the United States Davis Cup captain who was commenting on the match for Australian television.
But though Djokovic once had a reputation for lacking staying power, retiring from several high-profile matches earlier in his career, he has become a much more resilient force in the last two seasons. He needed deep reserves against Nadal, who looked the fresher man for most of the fifth set (the only knockdown in relative terms coming when, during the awards ceremony, Nadal sat on the net while Djokovic remained standing).
Nadal broke serve first in the fifth to take a 4-2 lead, but Djokovic broke him back immediately in the next game and held to 4-all. On they pushed each other into the late night with the 15,000-seat arena still nearly full.
“This is as good as I’ve seen,” Courier, a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, said of the match.
It was not just the ticking clock or the grand tennis occasion. It was the quality, both defensive and offensive, under duress, and though the strain was evident on their faces, above all Djokovic’s with his reddening nose and slightly vacant gaze, it was not nearly so evident once the ball was in play.
Nadal saved a break point in the ninth game by serving and volleying for the first time in the match, even though Djokovic’s return failed to get over the net. Nadal saved another break point in the 11th game when he ripped a backhand crosscourt that Djokovic, lunging with his forehand, could not handle.
But on the next point, Nadal missed a whipping forehand down the line and then surrendered the break with a weak sliced backhand into the net. This time, Djokovic did serve for the match, but Nadal was not done pushing him or himself, lunging desperately into the corner and hitting one-handed slices to keep rallies alive.
He got one more chance to keep the marathon going, but Djokovic saved a break point at 30-40, and on the next point, Nadal’s full-force backhand hit the top of the net and sailed wide. Djokovic wagged an index finger at the sky, but it was not quite over.
There were still the bounces (and more bounces) before his next serve, but Djokovic handled the moment and the pressure with aplomb, which has become quite a habit in the last year, and he slammed a first serve down the middle that Nadal reached with his last desperate backhand.
The ball landed short in the court, and Djokovic, after so much hard work, made the last one look easy: stroking his forehand for a winner. As he fell to the court, the crowd raised to its feet.
http://straightsets.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/djokovic-tops-nadal-in-five-sets-to-win-in-australia/
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