Australian Open: Djokovic narrows the fence over Federer and Nadal

The Serbian, now eight times in Australia, has won five of the last seven big. It is three from the Swiss and two from Spanish. “I want to be historical number 1,” he says

• Australia.
  

  Djokovic reacts to a great Thiem, wins his seventeenth big
  

Each of the big winners by Federer, Nadal or Djokovic forces us to reflect again on the close struggle that they maintain to finish their respective careers with the greatest number of titles of this maximum rank. With its eighth title at the Australian Open, achieved after dominating Dominic Thiem for 6-4, 4-6, 2-6, 6-3 and 6-4, in three hours and 59 minutes, the Serbian has risen to the 17 in the global, being only two of the Spanish and three of the Swiss.

Thiem did not go far from breaking the unalterable sequence since the 2016 US Open, when Stan Wawrinka took the title: the three men fighting in a sort of prolonged fly for occupying the best place in history, the last 13 have been distributed.

The Grand Slam are my main goal, so I continue to compete and play all season, said Djokovic, the only one who openly admits the weight of such ambition. Nole He explained that he looks for the historical number 1. The nuance is pertinent after his new victory, together with Nadal's defeat against Thiem in the quarterfinals, has risen again to the sky of the rnking: 9,720 points compared to 9,395 in Spanish.

The victory was thus a full recognition for the tennis player who usually starts the season more fit. This year the stretch hit by Djokovic has a plus, after leading Serbia towards the victory in the ATP Cup with the qualified success of defeating Nadal, who does not beat him on the surface fast since the end of the 2013 US Open.

The balcnico counts his 13 matches by victories in 2020, after becoming the first tennis player of the professional era that wins majors in three different decades. Ken Rosewall had done it before, in the fifties, sixties and seventies of the last century.

The suffered triumph against Thiem, who did not take advantage of a break ball in the third game of the fourth set when he dominated by two sets to one and felt the proximity of the greatest success of his career in the fourth game of the fifth, where he gave the serve, waves again the candidacy of the also pentacampen of Wimbledon, three times winner of the US Open and one of Roland Garros to occupy the place that still maintains Federer, which super in the semifinals in Melbourne.

Very capable in any scenario

The recently concluded tournament gave birth to the first possibility that Nadal matched Federer's 20 greats, but it was Djokovic, as tradition dictates, who has gained meters in the race. The trend increases their options to pass in front of their two adversaries, as theirs have been five of the last seven Grand Slam titles. At 32, six and a half years younger than Federer and almost a year younger than Nadal, Belgrade is a capable competitor on any surface.

It has, however, impassable mental gaps in struggles of this caliber. It happened this Sunday, when he suffered a warning from the chair judge, Damien Dumusois, for exceeding the 25 seconds stipulated to take out, followed by a penalty that forced him to start directly from the second serve with 4-4 in the second set. I lost the service and the game, got in touch with the judge and fell into a gap from which he did not return until the fourth quarter. After losing the second set I started to feel very bad. I do not understand the reason, because I have prepared the game and I have done the same as in the others. The doctor said I wasn't getting enough hydration, he said to complement the explanation of what happened.

Much had to do in the construction of an extraordinary tennis match Dominic Thiem, who, at 26, takes advantage over the members of the so-called Next Gen to claim as an alternative. Since February 2019, when he started working with Nicols Mass, he has experienced an explicit growth in fast track, but he was not expected as the co-star of the tournament. Winner in Indian Wells of his first Masters 1000 and champion in the second part of last year in Vienna and Pekn, Thiem has exhibited in Australia a game full of order and determination, with perfectly homologable ways away from the clay.

If in his first two finals of the Grand Slam he met Rafael Nadal, and 12 times champion of Roland Garros and the best specialist ever appeared on that surface, in the third he faced who might be considered the strongest man of The hard track story. As it has been written, this time Thiem was closer to being able to take the big hit in his career.

While movements begin to be noticed in the second line, with the precedent of Daniil Medvedev facing Nadal in the last final of the US Open, Djokovic's triumph maintains the established power. Federer may have a last option to win Wimbledon for the ninth time, but the fight will resume before, starting May 20, at Roland Garros, with Nadal again as a favorite, not forgetting Nole and Dominic Thiem.