I stay here. The man is dirty, injured, limping, but buried inside his face, distorted with tiredness, are the twinkling eyes of a child planted in the center of his amusement park. I’m not leaving, Novak Djokovic says with gestures to the Parisians in jubilation after the second consecutive feat of his happy quiescence, the young people (Musetti, 22 years old, Cerundolo, 25) pierce him with arrows and Achille never dies, on the contrary: he gives himself 9 hours and 8′ of fighting in the mud in the space of 72 hours while Jannik Sinner, who returns to the field today against the Bulgarian Dimitrov in the quarterfinals of Roland Garros, begins to wonder with what arguments he can persuade the king who refuses to become great to abdicate.
The argument with his wife
They call it tennis. But open-air psychoanalysis is not just a sport Djoker shares with all of us on the Monday in which he seems one step away from collapse again (Sinner is certain to become n.1 on June 10th, in that case) and instead manages the miracle of moving the night a little further. Where Musetti was, an Argentinian with a lineage totally unsuited to this story of life and death rows from the baseline – it’s about this and nothing else, eros and thanatos – and therefore perfect for the role of the victim, the Pampas lamb to be sacrificed to the gods to guarantee the survival of the best, at least for another round, provided that the physique of an elderly 37 year old allows the Serbian yet another superhuman feat: judging by the grimace of his wife Jelena in the stands, which Djokovic, at the height of frustration, came to take it out on (the marital dispute broadcast worldwide, an unreleased piece), perhaps not.
The script has already been seen. Novak annexes the first set then has a decline aggravated by a muscle problem in his right leg (“An annoyance that has become pain”), he calls the doctor, shakes his head, plays under painkillers (“But I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue – he warns -, I’ll do some tests…”), blames the pitch (“I asked for it to be swept more often: they told me no”), meanwhile Cerundolo goes ahead two sets to one. But it’s not over, it never is with Djoker who recovers from a break in the fourth, finding a bit of mobility and stretching, canceling out a deadly opportunity to lead his opponent at 5-5, dragging himself to the fifth, clinging to the memory of himself and to energies that seemed lost.
The controversy over the fields
He had already complained about the central defender in Paris during the wrestling with Musetti, he returns to the charge: «Good work guys, the fields are not slippery at all…» he sneers mockingly at the chair umpire having risen from a daring fall that leaves him covered in dirt and furious, perhaps short on strength but not on cutting sarcasm. What can happen, again, in this surreal and very dense match?
That Djokovic wins, of course, 6-3 in the fifth set at the top of a match as long as an intercontinental flight to the East, 4.39′, he claws the 370th Slam victory (overtaking Federer stuck at 369: a record for his personal collection) and celebrates with a speech in botched French (he can’t have all the talents) the 428th week (non-consecutive) he started as number one in the ranking.
There are champions who refuse defeat. But Djokovic is beyond that, he rejects the concept of age that is pressing, he does not foresee a voluntary handover. They will have to take him down (Norwegian Ruud will try tomorrow in the quarterfinals) or convince him that tennis is in good hands even without him. Is it a coincidence if Jannik Sinner torments his fingers more and more often?
