857 – the days since Djokovic was last defeated after leading by a set and a break: it happened again during the Olympic semifinal that he lost last week against Alexander Zverev in Tokyo.
The last time Nole had lost by wasting such an advantage may be traced back to March 26, 2019: on that date, the Serbian faced Roberto Bautista Agut in Miami – a round of 16 bout – and started big by leading 6-1 1-0 and serve, before falling into a spiral that allowed the Spaniard to win the match.
Before losing to Zverev at the Olympic Games, Djokovic was coming off a winning streak of 22 matches (during which he dropped only nine sets) and a 6-2 head-to-head record against the German. After the defeat suffered in the final last May in Rome against Nadal, the Serbian secured three titles: the ATP 250 in Belgrade and, above all, both the French Open and Wimbledon, the latter two being huge wins that allowed him to equal Federer and Nadal at 20 Slam titles.
When Djokovic broke Zverev’s serve during the fifth game of the second set during the Tokyo Olympics semifinal, moving up to 6-1 3-2 and serve, the match appeared essentially to be going his way, a feeling also validated by the statistics that saw Nole winning the last 40 matches in which he had won the first set (66 when considering best-of-five encounters) – this streak began after the round robin match of the ATP Finals 2019 lost against Thiem in the decider’s tiebreaker.
Perhaps this is enough to understand the magnitude of the feat achieved by Zverev, who was good at not breaking down once he went at a clear disadvantage against the winner of the first three Grand Slams played in 2021 and then to be relentless when it came to exploiting the decline of his opponent. In doing so, Sascha earned the Olympic final with merit and then the gold medal, thanks to his emphatic win over Khachanov.
To contextualise further the comeback win of the new champion of the Olympic Games, we decided to further investigate how statistically the victory was unlikely for him when he went to the change of court at a 1-6 2-3 disadvantage. We went back in time trying to figure out how many times it has happened to Djokovic to lose matches in which he was ahead not only by a set, but at least by a set and a break. We have thus discovered that since the second round of the Masters 1000 played at Bercy in Paris at the beginning of November 2012, Djokovic – at that time already sure to end the year at number 1 in the ranking and focusing on the ATP Finals – lost against Querrey after leading 6-0 2-0, it had only happened in three other circumstances that the Serbian lost after taking a set and a break lead:
- Rome 2013, against Berdych (the only one of the four comebacks suffered in the last eight and a half years in which Nole has actually been two games ahead in the second set; in the other three he got broken immediately after breaking his opponent’s serve)
- Doha 2019, against Bautista Agut
- Miami 2019, against Bautista Agut
Starting with the 2012 ATP Finals (which the Serbian would later win for the second of five times) to the Olympic semifinal, Djokovic has won the first set in best-of-three matches 284 times, actually winning the whole thing 273 times (or 96.1%). An impressive record that could have been even better, as can be seen by the unfolding of the 11 matches in which he led by a set, which are listed in the following table:
| TOURNAMENT | OPPONENT | FINAL SCORE | NOTES |
| ATP Finals 2019 | Thiem | 6-7 6-3 7-6 | Two points away from victory |
| Shanghai 2019 | Tsitsipas | 3-6 7-5 6-3 | |
| Cincinnati 2019 | Medvedev | 3-6 6-3 6-3 | Wasted a break point in the second set |
| Miami 2019 | Bautista Agut | 1-6 7-5 6-3 | Leading by a break in the second set |
| Doha 2019 | Bautista Agut | 3-6 7-6 6-4 | Leading by a break in the second set; two points away from victory |
| Queen’s 2018 | Cilic | 5-7 7-6 6-3 | Had a championship point |
| Monte Carlo 2018 | Thiem | 6-7 6-2 6-3 | |
| Doha 2015 | Karlovic | 6-7 7-6 6-4 | Two points away from victory |
| Dubai 2014 | Federer | 3-6 6-3 6-2 | |
| Rome 2013 | Berdych | 2-6 7-5 6-4 | Leading by a break in the second set; two points away from victory |
| Indian Wells 2013 | Del Potro | 4-6 6-4 6-4 |
Against Cilic in the 2018 Queen’s final, Nole wasted a match point, while against Berdych in Rome eight years ago, against Karlovic in Qatar in 2015, facing Bautista Agut in Doha and Thiem at the ATP Finals in 2019, he was only two points away from claiming victory.
We then continued the analysis to try to have even more precise data by deliberately not considering the matches that Nole won by breaking the opponent’s serve in the tenth or twelfth game, or those won after winning the tie-break of the second set in the event that the Serbian had not previously broken the serve of the opponent – if Djokovic had never broken serve in the second set except in the final game of the match, technically he had not been ahead of a set and a break in the whole match.
After his defeat at Bercy in 2012, the Serbian actually found himself in the lead of a set and a break in 241 occasions, losing three times (as mentioned, with Berdych in Rome 2013, and Bautista Agut at Doha and Miami 2019). So, considering the last eight and a half years of the Serbian’s career, from a purely statistical point of view, in the middle of that second set at the Olympics’ semifinal in Tokyo, Zverev had a 0.012% chance of winning the game. An interesting point of view, but to be taken with a grain of salt: it is necessarily an incomplete analysis because – among the numerous variables that this number is unable to represent – it does not capture important factors such as the different value of the opponents faced and the current athletic shape or prowess of the contenders.
The numbers relating to the difficulty of coming back against Djokovic once the Serbian claims the first set become even more impressive when considering five-set matches in which the Serbian won the first set. Djokovic won 295 out of 301, or 98%. The only six losses are summarized in this table:
| TOURNAMENT | OPPONENT | FINAL SCORE |
| 2016 US Open | Wawrinka | 6-7 6-4 7-5 6-3 |
| 2015 French Open | Wawrinka | 4-6 6-4 6-3 6-4 |
| 2014 French Open | Nadal | 3-6 7-5 6-2 6-4 |
| 2014 Australian Open | Wawrinka | 2-6 6-4 6-2 3-6 9-7 |
| 2010 French Open | Melzer | 3-6 2-6 6-2 7-6 6-4 |
| 2005 Davis Cup | Rochus | 1-6 7-5 6-7 6-1 6-3 |
An interesting detail is that in the four defeats suffered after winning the first set in the last eight and a half years, he has never – in addition to the set advantage – been ahead of a break in the second. Three times out of six (!) the opponent who managed to turn the match around was the uber-version of Wawrinka (Nadal did it once, when he came back against Nole during the 2014 Roland Garros final). It is also impressive that Djokovic has only suffered one comeback out of 249 games in which he has found himself leading two sets to love, against Melzer at Roland Garros in 2010.
The defeat suffered against Zverev may be due to a great psychological and physical fatigue following the great efforts made in recent months (perhaps exacerbated by having also played the mixed doubles in the key days of the Olympic tournament). Djokovic confirmed this in the final for the bronze medal he lost against Carreno Busta and, above all, during the ensuing press conference after the Japanese defeats.
In the mixed zone, the number 1 in the world has also casted some doubts on his participation in the North American swing, which is particularly important for him this year; the Grand Slam, which would be achieved by winning the US Open, is at stake.
Article by Ferruccio Roberti; translated by Michele Brusadelli; edited by Tommaso Villa
