Novak Djokovic gets up after slipping and falling while attempting a return to Carlos Alcaraz in men’s singles final at Wimbledon on July 16. Alcaraz beat Djokovic.Alberto Pezzali/The Associated Press
A few minutes before the Wimbledon men’s singles final began on Sunday, a great ripple went through the stand. Someone told someone who told someone else that they’d seen Brad Pitt.
Apparently, he was nearby. Sitting somewhere just ahead of us.
“Sunglasses,” someone said.
“Blue shirt,” said someone else.
On either side of me, two tabloid journalists began taking random photos of the crowd and then expanding them on their phones to furiously examine the backs of heads. Nope. Nope. Not him. Nope.
One of them was texting with her photographer. Her final had already begun.
“Are you on Brad Pitt duty, too?” she said.
No, no, not me. I’m just here waiting on history. For the next five hours, it would slowly, and then suddenly, arrive.
Carlos Alcaraz beat Novak Djokovic 1-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4. It was Djokovic’s first loss on Centre Court in more than a decade.
It was a match of uncommon attrition. Just one example – the fifth game of the third set took 26 minutes to play. Other, lesser players can finish a set in that much time. You half expected these two men to slowly make their way to the net, drop their tools and begin hitting each other. It never grew heated, but it still managed to seem close to violence.
There are two ways to look at this signpost encounter.
The most obvious is that Novak Djokovic was deposed as tennis’s dominant force.
Would the Djokovic of five years ago have romped in the first set, as he did on Sunday, and then allow Alcaraz to reel him back in? Would that Djokovic have tried to chop down one of the posts holding up the net when things started to go sideways in the fifth? Would that Djokovic be seen bent over, using his racquet as a crutch, after long points late in the match?
Probably not.
The other way of looking at it is that now Djokovic is dangerous again.
He hasn’t had a lot to worry about since his best frenemies drifted out of the game. With Roger Federer gone and Rafael Nadal on hiatus, there wasn’t anyone to put a real fright in him.
The entire world’s bottled-up pandemic hysteria was enough to knock Djokovic sideways for a few months there, but that couldn’t stop him from winning whatever he was allowed to enter.
Lacking enemies of quality, Djokovic devoted himself to winning over the crowds. They’d loved Federer and still loved Nadal, but those two were gone. Now it was his turn.
On Sunday, we saw how poorly that has gone.
The crowd wanted very little to do with Djokovic from the off. By the end of the first set, he’d begun bantering with them. When he felt he wasn’t getting enough credit, he would applaud himself. When he upset them by winning points, he’d blow them kisses.
There was a moment late in the match when Djokovic decided to give himself a little mental-health break by screaming at the chair umpire for a few moments. Over what? Over nothing. This was a rest disguised as a strop.
In the middle of it, the crowd began to jeer him. All the fun had drained from Djokovic now. He stopped what he was saying and stared at them with barely concealed contempt. It was the look that said, ‘After all I’ve given you, this is what I get back?’
In the end, he reminded us of his many great attributes – an unwillingness to submit, tempered with grace.
He has never been charismatic, but it is difficult to think of any great athlete who has ever been as cordial.
If I’d spent a day of my life being booed for supplying one of the great sporting entertainments in recent memory, I might be a little peevish in my remarks immediately following it. But not this guy.
“Good afternoon everyone,” he started. “Not so good for me. But good for Carlos.”
The crowd tittered. They only really like him in London when he’s being sportsmanlike to someone they prefer.
Djokovic played it perfectly. He praised Alcaraz. He promised to be better. He admitted that he’d had his own share of luck.
“Maybe I should have lost a couple of finals that I won,” Djokovic said, specifically referencing his legendary last final on this same court against Federer in 2019. “So maybe this is even-steven.”
Djokovic had the crowd in his hands now. Too late to do him any good, they were falling under his sway. When he began to weep after seeing his children in the stands, they were fully in his thrall.
But history has proved that Djokovic can never maintain these connections. It’s hard to say what it is about him. Maybe it’s the dominance. Nobody roots for a robot.
If so, a little of that came off him on Sunday. For the first time ever, you looked at him and thought, ‘Maybe he’s gotten old.’
He’d said earlier in the tournament that his age, 36, is the new 26. Nice thought. But it isn’t. On the back half of 30, any athlete who runs around for a living is fighting a rearguard action with his own body. How many tennis players have dominated – not just won things, but dominated – at this age? Until Sunday, just one – Djokovic.
But whether he wants to or not, he has entered his lion-in-winter phase.
What took a hit on Sunday wasn’t Djokovic’s reputation or his legacy. Those remain unassailable.
What Djokovic lost was his aura of invincibility. Until the last point, you really didn’t think this guy would allow himself to be beaten. But he did.
Most opponents will still be terrified when he lands in their half of a draw. But there is now at least one who need never fear him. Once one guy has your number, the buzzards are never far behind.
When Federer lost that shine near the end, it became hard to watch him. You found yourself perilously close to pitying him.
Djokovic isn’t anywhere close to that point. Had a couple of small moments gone differently on Sunday – the second-set tiebreak in particular – this match might’ve been a walkover rather than a loss.
What would we be saying then? That he was the greatest of all time. That there was no stopping him.
What should we be saying instead? That tennis acquired a couple of new rules on Sunday.
The first is never sit beside Brad Pitt if there are cameras around (RIP Guy Ritchie).
The second is if you’re going to poke tennis’s still-reigning bull, prepare for the horns.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
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