http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/te...-only-Britain-had-adopted-the-Serbinator.html
Novak Djokovic: if only Britain had adopted 'the Serbinator'
Quantum physicists may be divided on the “multiverse theory”, but every Dr Who fan knows for a fact that an infinite number of parallel universes coexist with our own.
Indestructible: the moment Novak Djokovic looks finished, he comes back more lethal than ever Photo: REUTERS
By Matthew Norman 7:15AM BST 20 May 2011
Travelling between them is a struggle without pan-dimensional time warp technology, but thanks to the gift of imagination it is in one of them that I invite you join me today.
There we find Roger Draper, the Lawn Tennis Association chief executive, grinning smugly as he contemplates the start of the French Open on Sunday. With two Brits in the top four, the strongest nation in men’s tennis stands poised to celebrate its first world-ranked No 1.
His name is Novak Djokovic, and in that alternate universe he is as British as Andy Murray, who came so close to ending his chum’s startling unbeaten run in Rome last Saturday. How close Draper came in 2006 to persuading the Djokovics to forsake Serbia for Blighty is unclear. All we know is that they talked for a while before the family decided against.
Could Draper have done more to entice Novak to follow the trail blazed by Greg Rusedski, Lennox Lewis, Zola Budd and so many Test cricketers? Only he can know how Decca-and-the-Beatlish it was.
And would the country have accepted it if he had? A hunch insists that the inevitable row about a man with no genetic or colonial links to this country being fast-tracked through the passport system would not have survived Djokovic’s emergence as the finest player on earth.
Since annihilating Murray in January’s Australian Open final, he has dismantled every obstacle in his path. But the extent of his dominance only became clear in recent weeks, when he twice achieved the impossible by destroying Rafael Nadal on clay.
So it is that, after several years of the Big Four and several months of the Big Two, men’s tennis rejoices in a Big One. This will change at Roland Garros should Nadal re-exert his supremacy on clay. For now, male tennis’s most golden era has become a matter for a monopolies commission inquiry.
Roger Federer accepts his relegation to also-ran with wry resignation, and it will take a minor miracle if he is ever to upgrade the embroidery on one of those hideous white jackets to mark a 17th grand slam title. Murray, meanwhile, is cast to national stereotype as the pluckiest of losers.
But it is the eclipsing of Nadal that stretches belief. After thumping Djokovic in September’s US Open final, the raging Mallorcan bull was destined to double his tally of nine majors, and supplant the Fed as the greatest ever.
Three months later, Djokovic led Serbia to an emotional Davis Cup victory, and the surge in self-confidence made “the Serbinator” less a naff nickname than the reality.
Like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cyborg, and as Murray learned in Rome, he cannot be killed for long. The moment he looks finished, the metallic globules re-coalesce and he comes back more lethal than ever.
His incredible talent has been obvious for years, but so has Murray’s. The Henmaniacal problem is that tennis is played more in the mind than on clay, grass or hard court. The Davis Cup success mutated the Serb, mentally at least, into an indestructible monster, and the metamorphosis must break Murray’s heart. “Every time a friend succeeds,” as Gore Vidal said, “a little piece of me dies.”
The two, born a week apart, might be compatriots as well as friends and practice partners. Imagine the liberation for Murray had the paralysing pressure to end the wait for a major title been lifted by Djokovic.
In our alternate universe, it was. There, the family accepted Draper’s offer, and it is Novak the Brit who could be within days of becoming the world No 1 and, should he win the French Open, equalling Guillermo Vilas’s 46-match unbeaten streak.
In that same parallel world, by the way, Stuart Pearce smashed his penalty into the roof of the German net in 1990, Colin Montgomerie hit his iron shot at the last to within six feet to take the 2006 US Open, and Audley Harrison emigrated to Belgrade as a baby. For followers of British sport, I cannot recommend it warmly enough.
Nenadmasno!
Mislim da je drugi set Nole izgubio samo zato što je organizacija bila očajna...iznervirao se strašno.
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