When one of the Serb’s strengths failed in Melbourne he still had so much more in his game than any of his opponents
As Tommy Paul looked back on the brutal experience of facing Novak Djokovic for the first time in his career on Rod Laver Arena last week, he sighed deeply. Paul had entered his first grand slam semi-final with a wealth of different ideas about how he would disrupt his opponent and impose himself. He soon found that they amounted to nothing.
Paul had wanted to serve and volley, he explained, but Djokovic’s returns peppered the baseline and instead forced him back. He wanted to mix drop shots into his game, but Djokovic’s incessant depth made it impossible. He had planned to slice but he was already under immense pressure on his backhand wing from early on. “He didn’t really let me execute any of the game plan that I had laid out for myself,” he said.