Yesterday, Novak Djokovic cruised past Juan Martin Del Potro to secure his second Shanghai Masters title.
The newly demoted World #2 took advantage of Del Potro’s poor service game to prove that he’s unaffected by Rafael Nadal’s pipping him to the World #1 spot and will continue to win titles regardless of what is going on around him.
In fact, this happens to be the six-time major winner’s fifth ATP title of the year, capping a more than satisfactory 2013. Although I’m sure he would’ve liked to have won a few more titles; the big two being his two losses in the finals of the Wimbledon and US Open championships.
Djokovic has a history of falling at the final hurdle; the Serb has lost in no fewer than six Major finals. In the vast majority of those major championships he has played unstoppable tennis. In 2013, having played tennis which was frankly too good for words in the build up to the Wimbledon Semi-Finals and the US Open Final, he just wasn’t able to produce the tennis he’d previously shown when it really mattered.
There’s no question that he has immense mental strength (said in an Arsene Wenger voice); chokers do not win as many titles as he does, but he will always look back on his career so far and wonder what might’ve been had he been able to do what he’s done so often on a few more occasions.
In the final itself, Djokovic displayed the aforementioned unstoppable tennis and didn’t let Del Potro register a game until the sixth game) to make it 5-0). Del Potro was very sloppy and struggled to get into any sort of rhythm and if there’s one thing the “Joker” is good at it is punishing people for their mistakes (no pun or film reference intended). However, in the second set Del Potro improved and pushed Djokovic hard, eventually winning the set to bring it to 1-1. In the deciding set things were incredibly close until Djokovic showed his mental strength by stepping up to the plate and winning the tie-break.
This caps a wonderful fortnight in which Djokovic has not only won the Shanghai Masters, but also beat newly crowned US Open Champion and World No.1 Rafael Nadal to the China Open title. This win was a fantastic way to win his fifteenth Masters title and left Del Potro scratching his head as to how he’s going to win his first.
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