There’s was a point, late in the third set of the semifinal match against Andy Murray that Djokovic played a few bad points to lose his serve, just as he had managed to break even.  It just seemed like Djokovic had decided he didn’t want to win anymore.  If he got past Murray, his reward was a final less than a day later with the king of clay himself, Rafael Nadal.

But Murray wasn’t playing error-free tennis either, and all of a sudden, Djokovic saw that he could break back and he seemed to change his mind about tanking that match.  There was a streak on the line, after all!  This may be the sign of a new Djokovic.  In the past, maybe he would have tanked.  Few would criticize him.  And so Djokovic decided to fight, this after taking a nasty spill where it looked like he tweaked his ankle and possibly his hip.

Murray couldn’t muster another credible challenge.  What seemed like a breakthrough moment for Andy Murray slipped from his fingers once again, and he would be the closest challenge (surprised?) to derail the Djokovic express.  And, on clay, of all surfaces!

When Djokovic won the semifinal match, he had less than a day to recover.  Of course, it helped that this wasn’t a best of 5 match.  What’s been particularly impressive about Djokovic is his stamina.  This was the one remaining question.  For years, if it got hot, Djokovic struggled.  There was a chance for that to happen back in Indian Wells and Miami, but he came through that without a problem.  Of course, he won the Australian Open, but it was a bit cooler than usual, and he managed to play one less match when he didn’t have to hit a ball to beat Victor Troicki.

Nadal must have thought he had his chances.  Nadal had a fairly easy semifinal against Gasquet.  He had played the early match.  Djokovic had played a 3-setter and was taken to a third set tiebreak.  But he, too, knows what it’s like to come back from a tough match.  A few years ago, Nadal was taken to the limit by countryman, Fernando Verdasco, and had 2 days to come back and play the finals which he won in 5 sets over Federer.

My feeling was that Djokovic would want to win the match in straight sets and that he had the energy to keep up.  He didn’t seem that tired at the end of the Murray match.  True, the body tends to rebel when it gets some rest, but top pros have a great group that try to get players back to playing shape quickly.

Djokovic managed to get a break in the middle of the first set, but Nadal broke back.  Djokovic however, continued to produce magical shots from whereever, and broke Nadal once again.  Nadal’s strategy initially was to move Djokovic side to side, hitting one sideline, then another, but Djokovic seemed up to the task.  Then, he employed a strategy he used against Soderling in last year’s French final.  He began lofting the ball up high.

Today’s players are so amazing, even compared to players from a decade ago.  In the past, a player had a strikezone, a range of heights they felt most comfortable hitting.  Hit it in that zone and the player could look like magic.  Hit it higher or lower, and that player could look like crap.  Nadal became the first player to have a near infinite strikezone.  He can take a ball that skids inches above the ground to meters above it and put that ball away.  Djokovic is now another guy who can deal with all sorts of heights, because Nadal is not only good at handling balls hit at different heights, he’s also good at dishing it out.

It’s interesting how the best of the best win.  Federer has often been called a genius.  This is because of Federer’s great improvisational skill.  He has raised hitting the tweener to something of an artform.  He flicks shots and gets passes as he’s being attacked.  And because he has to cover up for a somewhat weaker backhand, he moves to his left tremendously well, and hits either an inside in or inside out shot hit, as David Foster Wallace once put it, like a liquid whip.

Federer’s weakness has generally been the chances he takes when he goes for such shots.  He’s been willing to trade off the ability to zone out with his penchant for making lots of unforced errors.  Agassi changed his game late in his career to one of waiting for his opponents to make the error and that lead to more wins.  Federer doesn’t seem to believe in this.

Nadal, on the other hand, looks something like a bull terrier.  His goal is to give you a punch so powerful that you are left in a daze.  That is, he waits until you give him a weak shot, and he pounces.  He doesn’t need a winner.  He just needs you to start chasing after a ball.  You send a weak return, he hits it in the other corner, and you are running until he finally gets a winner.  Like Federer, Nadal has adopted the strategy of running around his backhand.

Djokovic, by contrast, is all about controlled precise power.  He never seems rushed.  He hits precise targets.  His shots rarely seem like he’s flailing at the ball.  These are the kinds of players that trouble Nadal.  People that play their own game rather than adjust their game to play Nadal.  Djokovic wins not so much by hitting harder than Nadal, but not being fazed by Nadal’s power, and by hitting precisely down the line.

If Djokovic does one thing much better than Murray, it’s hit down the line on both sides.  He has that ball on a string.

Djokovic rarely gets into situations where he is chasing balls and barely keeping in the point against Nadal, and he may have clay to thank for that.  On a hard court, those hard shots would trouble Djokovic more.

Djokovic is still chasing a few folks: McEnroe, Lendl, Borg.  If he wins the French, he’ll reach 46 consecutive wins, which should actually exceed Vilas’s wins (Vilas seems to have 45 wins, not 46, by my count).

Although Vilas continued to win for another 30 more matches, he had one asterisk to his streak.  No, not the Nastase spaghetti racquet match that Vilas defaulted because it was a travesty to the game.  It’s that he barely faced any top players and he played pretty much every match on clay.  He never beat Borg during this time, and only beat McEnroe and Connors once or so during the streak.

Meanwhile, Djokovic has met all challengers.  He’s beaten Roger Federer three times (Australian Open, Dubai, Indian Wells) and Nadal four times including twice on clay (Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome), Andy Murray twice (Australian Open, Rome), Robin Soderling once (Rome), David Ferrer once (Madrid).  Vilas managed to avoid most of his top opponents and stayed on clay the entire time (almost).

With Djokovic and Nadal taking all the attention, other players get less.  In particular, Roger Federer is basically an afterthought ever since he lost to Richard Gasquet.

They say Djokovic has forgotten how to lose.  He is certainly having the best 6 months of his life.  How much longer can he go?

By the way, he’s about 400 points behind Nadal.  He can reach number 1 even without winning the French (say, Rafa loses before the final and Djokovic makes the quarters).  Rafa is defending the French Open title while Djokovic is defending quarterfinal points.

Oh yes, the end of the match.  Djokovic broke early but was broken back and they pretty much held serve until Nadal was down 0-40.  He brought the game back to deuce, but then Djokovic got break point again and eventually secured the break.

Final score: 6-4, 6-4.