Oh, dear. You do worry for anyone standing in between Novak Djokovic and the final of the Australian Open. The world No.1 has been in unstoppable form in Melbourne, and is now into the last eight of the competition without dropping a set.As the home crowd enjoyed the last couple of hours of Australia Day, he dismissed Gilles Muller 6-4 7-5 7-5. It was their first ever meeting, which caused the Serb a few moments of concern – where is this bloke going to serve next? Good grief, he’s charging the net – but it was nothing to make a man of Djoko’s calibre panic. And a quick squint at the stats sheet will give him a warm and cosy feeling:
47 winners to 16 errors. Aces, 13; 82 per cent of first serve points won. We could go on, but we would be here all night.“I just tried to make him play an extra shot,” Djokovic said cheerily. “He has a very difficult serve to read. It’s difficult when you haven’t played someone, it took me some time. It was a good performance tonight and what stands out is the serve – I got a lot of aces and a lot of free points.”
There was a distinct lack of tension between these two men. Djokovic was all smiles as he walked on to the court, he was very jolly with the young lad who had been brought on to do the coin toss, and he barely broke a sweat for the first couple of sets. Up in the players’ box, Boris Becker seemed to be taking one for the team. Normally, Djoko’s box is packed with personnel, each with their own duties and responsibilities and they sit wedged in tightly, shoulder to shoulder. But there was Boris looking like Nigel No Mates. “You’re in charge tonight, Boris. Txt us the result and see you in the pub later …”
But if Muller was not causing Djokovic any problems in the early stages, the court surface was proving a little taxing. Trying to keep his footing was causing problems – something to do with the soles of his shoes – and as Djokovic stumbled on the baseline, he scuffed his knuckles on the ground and had to call for the trainer to have two miniscule grazes tended to. Novak had a sorely-poorly, hurty hand and he needed a sweetie to make it better.
They are delicate flowers, these tennis aces. Where you or I will limp into work with a streaming cold, a ricked back or a nasty dose of the lurgy, these tennis types can be rendered immobile by a touch of dandruff. Then again, it is a bit like comparing a 20-year-old ute with a Ferrari. If the ute develops a rattle around its big end, you give it a thump and plough on as normal. If the ashtrays are full in the Ferrari, it requires a three-day service and sizeable wedge of the folding stuff.
Anyway, Muller is a perfectly decent chap and he perfectly decent player (he must be, he was in the fourth round of the Australian Open) but he has never set the world alight with his results. Currently ranked No.42 in the world, matching his career high of 2011, he is solid without being flashy. Now here’s a quiz question for you: Gilles has reached three tournament finals in his long career – who has he lost to when he got there? No? Not a clue? Well, all of them were former world No.1s: Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick. And here he was again, losing to the current world No.1. They say consistency is everything in tennis.
Of course, Gilles’s tactics left a little to be desired. He waited for more than an hour and a half before he launched his first attack. Against the man who had dropped just one game on serve throughout the tournament, the man from Luxembourg suddenly found himself with a collection of break points. Four of them came and went, but still Djokovic held firm. Gilles tried to manufacture another chance, but the four-time champion had shut up shop. That was your lot, Gilles – Djoko was off to the quarterfinals and an appointment with Milos Raonic, the world No.8 and a bloke he has beaten four times in a row.
“I played Milos finals of Bercy last time,” Djokovic said. “I know what to expect. We practice a lot. We live in the same place. We're good friends. He's very confident. He's been playing some great tennis in last 15 months. He deserves to be where he is now, top 10, coming closer to top five of the world. Tough one. Definitely a tough one. I need to be at my best, top of my game, in order to win that match.”
The problem for Raonic is that Djokovic appears to be on the very top of his form – and no one seems able to worry him, much less beat him.http://www.ausopen.com/en_AU/news/articles/2015-01-26/no_worries_for_novak.html