Novak Djokovic seems to be doing everything in his power to get eliminated from the year-end tournment in London -- he's now lost to David Ferrer and Janko Tipsarevic -- yet Tomas Berdych still must beat David Ferrer in today's late match to be sure the world No. 1 goes home. (How do you say "What do I have to do to get out of this place?" in Serbian?) As I've said before, I don't think these year-end events are indicative of much -- everyone is exhausted and the No. 1 ranking for the year has long been decided. But for Nole to go from nearly unbeatable to lose to two people he never loses to -- plus a third in Switzerland a couple weeks ago-- it does have me wondering if he will have anything close to the confidence he had last year once the official season begins again in January Down Under.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Novak Djokovic Loses His Shirt ... Again
Novak Djokovic seems to be doing everything in his power to get eliminated from the year-end tournment in London -- he's now lost to David Ferrer and Janko Tipsarevic -- yet Tomas Berdych still must beat David Ferrer in today's late match to be sure the world No. 1 goes home. (How do you say "What do I have to do to get out of this place?" in Serbian?) As I've said before, I don't think these year-end events are indicative of much -- everyone is exhausted and the No. 1 ranking for the year has long been decided. But for Nole to go from nearly unbeatable to lose to two people he never loses to -- plus a third in Switzerland a couple weeks ago-- it does have me wondering if he will have anything close to the confidence he had last year once the official season begins again in January Down Under.
You're definitely right that these late-season tourneys are indicative of much -- ex: Federer won here last year and then struggled most of this year -- but I do think this particular one suggests, at the very least, that Novak's work is cut out for him in 2012. Could he retain his number one position and win a bunch of tournaments? Of course. Is it likely he's going to see results that are anything close to what he saw in 2011? I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteBerdych does not have to beat Ferrer to make the semis. He only has to win a few games and he had already. Djokovic is out.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous: That post is misleading and ultimately inaccurate. The writer didn't want to take the time to explain the intricacies of how the round-robin format works. Djokovic was 3-5 sets after his final match today. Berdych was also 3-5 sets going into his final match. That means it comes down to games won. Because Djokovic lost to Ferrer so badly, Berdych only had to win a couple of games in order to advance to the semis. He could have LOST to Ferrer 1-6, 1-6 and still advanced. Djokovic basically had no chance unless Berdych lost love and love. Although Berdych did win the match, it wasn't necessary in order to advance.
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