MELBOURNE, Australia — With the benefit of hindsight it is easy to see that these past two weeks at the Australian Open have been nothing more than a warm-up for Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
Maybe we should have kept from wasting time on the men’s side and gone straight to the showcase, the final on Sunday, when two titans will revive their rivalry and battle once again for the Australian Open crown.
The question of who would meet in the final became clear on Friday evening, as Djokovic cruised past the French underdog Lucas Pouille, winning, 6-0, 6-2, 6-2.
It was a demolition both thorough and brief, and it mirrored what Nadal had done in his final four clash the night before, when he dismantled fast-rising Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece.
Nadal took 106 minutes, lightning fast for a match at that stage of a Grand Slam. Djokovic versus Pouille lasted only 83 minutes, with Djokovic riding his precision groundstrokes and feline quickness to the win.
“A perfect match for me,” Djokovic described it. “From the first to the last point.”
He looked calmly self-assured as he said this — nothing like the doubtful athlete who struggled through a nasty elbow injury and upset losses in Melbourne in 2017 and 2018, during the one confounding low period in his career. His performance on Friday had a transcendent quality, he said, and he called such a feeling “divine” and “in the zone, where everything flows so effortlessly and you are executing everything you are intending to execute.”
He added that the semifinal was one of the best matches he had played on the sea blue center court at Rod Laver Arena.
That’s saying a lot.
He was speaking, after all, of the court on which he will soon be aiming for a record seventh Australian Open title; of the court on which he won the first of his 14 major titles, when he beat another French player, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, in 2008.
It is also the court where he played one of the most stirring, and still the longest, Grand Slam finals in tennis history: the 5-hour-53-minute war of wills he won against Nadal, one of the greatest matches ever played, after which both players struggled to stay upright at the trophy ceremony.
“Hopefully,” Djokovic cracked, “we don’t go that long this time.”
You never know.
Djokovic brawling against Nadal for the 53rd time — Djokovic leads, 27-25 — is expected to scintillate. It may awaken memories of when the two were younger, fresher, but not necessarily better, versions of what they are today, when they seem far and away the two best on the planet, their old rivals diminished or injured or close to retirement, their new rivals not ready yet.
For sports fans in the United States, this is one of those events worth setting the clock for, a match scheduled to start at the very uncivilized time of 3:30 a.m. Eastern on Sunday.
Just as in the run-up to the 2012 final, the Serb, Djokovic, is ranked No. 1 in the world, and the Spaniard, Nadal, is No. 2 and slapping at his heels.
But seven years on, they are also very different. The Nadal of Melbourne 2019 is riding a game he has clearly modified for this event — a change made, he has acknowledged, as an adaptation to being 32.
Here, at a tournament in which he has not lost a single set, he is looking to keep his legs spry, his troublesome knees healthy. He is hitting more balls on the short hop, sticking closer to the baseline, volleying more. He has also streamlined his service motion, cutting fat from his windup in a search for more accuracy and greater pop.
Djokovic can see the difference. Speaking of the man he described as his primary rival (take that, Roger Federer), Djokovic noted that the changes were working for Nadal.
“I think he’s backing his first shot up with that great serve, saving energy, and then he can go for more in the return game,” Djokovic said. “With everything he possesses, all the qualities in his game, adding a lot of free points on the serve makes him much tougher to play against.”
Both players have had to adapt, had to overcome recent difficulty, to get to this point. Nadal arrived in Melbourne with low expectations, having taken a hiatus from the tour after last fall’s U.S. Open, where he withdrew in the semifinals, citing a leg injury. In November, he had ankle surgery.
Dogged by his injured elbow at last year’s Australian Open, Djokovic was routed in the quarterfinals by Hyeon Chung, a South Korean ranked No. 58 at the time. That loss was one of a batch of stunning upsets he suffered in major championships after winning Wimbledon in 2016. Plenty of questions were swirling around him at the time. He often wore a hangdog, puzzled look on his face during matches, where once there had been nothing but ice-cold surety.
Would he ever return to form?
But then, last summer, after elbow surgery and a remodeling of his priorities and his coaching team, the old Djokovic emerged. His health returned. So, too, did his steel-trap resolve. He won Wimbledon, beating Nadal in a five-set marathon that Djokovic credited here with giving “a different, more confident self.”
Later in the summer, he won his 14th Grand Slam at a sweltering U.S. Open, tightening his grip on the top of the men’s rankings.
Now he finds himself again in a Melbourne final, with a chance to repeat the glory of 2012, a chance for a 15th Grand Slam, just two behind the Spaniard’s haul of 17, within striking distance of Federer, who sits at 20 for most in a career.
At his postmatch news conference, I asked Djokovic to imagine a future conversation with his two children, who were not yet born seven years ago, and how he would describe that last epic Melbourne night against Nadal.
“How would I describe it?” he said, pausing before adding a touch of humor. “I’ll probably not have them sit down and watch it because I don’t like my children to watch TV that long.”
Then he grew serious.
“I would probably present it in more a general concept of our rivalry. That match would be icing on the cake.”
On Sunday, seeking a seventh Australian Open title, he will have the chance to add more icing, indeed a whole extra layer, to that cake, to the legacy of a glorious career.
