Djokovic’s words might lead you to believe that an outside force, or a shifting breeze in Arthur Ashe Stadium, turned this fourth-round match in the world No. 1’s favor. But it was Djokovic himself who did it on a specific point, with a specific shot, and a specific extra effort. Watching it in real time, it seemed to me to be a message from Djokovic to Brooksby that the Serb had taken the American’s best, and now he was going to rise above it.
The moment came with Brooksby serving at 2-3 in the second set. He had just won a titanic, 20-minute game on his sixth break point. The match had reached a thrilling peak, with Djokovic and Brooksby trading body blows—and drop shots, and lobs, and angles, and reflex volleys—through a series of long rallies. Djokovic had started the set well, leading 3-0, but now Brooksby was mounting a surprisingly successful counterattack. Was it really possible the 20-year-old could go up two sets to love?
During the 2-3 game, Brooksby had Djokovic on the run again, drawing him forward and lofting what looked like a winning lob over his head. But Djokovic decided it wasn’t going to be a winning lob. He turned on the jets, caught up to the ball, and flipped a high lob back over his head and deep into Brooksby’s side of the court. The rally went on, and on, through several more brilliant shots, until Brooksby attempted his own running defensive lob. Unlike Djokovic’s, it didn’t go in. A minute or so later, Djokovic broke serve with a forehand winner for 4-2. From there, he would win 14 games and Brooksby five. By retrieving that seemingly unretrievable lob, Djokovic had taken the match to a place where, physically, Brooksby couldn’t follow.
“He disguises his drop shot so well,” Djokovic said of Brooksby. “He’s a very intelligent player.”
“It wasn’t a great start” for him, Djokovic said, crediting Brooksby for playing a “perfect first set” and “executing all the shots efficiently—I was on the back foot.”
But after that service break for 4-2 in the second, Djokovic said he was “hitting more cleanly through the court.”
The second set took its toll on both men—“there were a lot of exhausting rallies”—but it was Djokovic, not surprisingly, who managed whatever weariness he was feeling over the last two sets better than his opponent. Brooksby hung on, but the suspense, and those thrilling, exhausting rallies, were over.
Yet Brooksby showed what he was capable of in the opening set and a half. He was the one taking the initiative, surprising Djokovic with directional changes, moving him side to side and up and back, and making just one error through the first seven games. Djokovic was the one pressing and overhitting.
“He disguises his drop shot so well,” Djokovic said of Brooksby. “He’s a very intelligent player.”
But there’s more to men’s tennis at the top of the rankings than well-disguised drop shots and intelligent tactics. There’s the combination of explosiveness and endurance needed to keep executing those tactics for three, four, five sets. Brooksby, who was the last American in either draw, will surely do his best to build a game that’s sturdy enough to last through night like this. Djokovic gave him an idea of how far he’ll have to go.
