This almost wasn’t the Wimbledon men’s championship. Kevin Anderson didn’t make it a real final until he had dropped the first two sets.
But Novak Djokovic’s four Wimbledon titles are real. That’s super impressive by any measure.
And now Djokovic has 13 Grand Slam titles. He’s suddenly in the race at 31 years old to overcome Roger Federer’s 20 and Rafa Nadal’s 17 Slam titles.
You might say Djokovic has six years to catch the soon-to-be 37-year-old Federer. Seven Grand Slam titles in six years is nothing for a player who won five Grand Slams in an 18-month period in 2015-16.
A NEW LIGHT ON SLAM RACE
This latest Wimbledon title by Djokovic puts an entire new light on the Grand Slam race. With Novak back in the hunt, and maybe Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka soon, Grand Slam titles could become even more difficult for Federer to win than ever. Of course, Federer will be 37 before he heads to New York for the U.S. Open.
Djokovic certainly looked the part in his two-day win over Nadal, and then toying with Anderson for two sets before Anderson finally rediscovered his aggressiveness and awesome power game.
Anderson made it a little interesting in the third set simply because everyone had memories of the tall South African’s rally from two sets down to upend Federer in the quarter-finals.
Could Anderson do it again? Of course, that wasn’t in the books.
Novak was too good.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED
In the end, Djokovic charged through a 7-3 tiebreaker to nail down a 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 romp in a Wimbledon final that wasn’t very pretty the first two sets.
It might have been unfortunate for Nadal that Anderson took so long to defeat John Isner in the other semifinal on Friday, and in the process changed the dynamics of this Wimbledon by forcing Djokovic and Nadal to play a night semifinal that lingered into Saturday due to a curfew in London.
No one will ever know what might have happened if the Djokovic/Nadal match had played out on Friday. The Grand Slam race might have been entirely different today.
A SPECIAL TIME IN MEN’S TENNIS
Novak will take this Wimbledon success with open arms, and probably make things very interesting in men’s tennis for at least the next four or five years. And then when Federer, Nadal, Murray, Djokovic, Wawrinka and several other top players call it a career, the men’s tour won’t be the same.
So, let’s just enjoy the best time in men’s tennis in the Open Era while it lasts. It’s pretty special right now.
Congratulations, Novak. You’re back.
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James Beck is the long-time tennis columnist for the Charleston (S.C.) Post and Courier newspaper. He can be reached at Jamesbecktennis@gmail.com. See his Post and Courier columns at
