Don’t write off Djokovic just yet!

"Novak Djokovic had a bad day. He looked like an older player. It was a rare moment. However, as longtime tennis watchers know: Write off Novak Djokovic at your peril. He'll be back. He'll respond," tweeted a fan, minutes after the top-ranked Serb fell short of expectations for the third time against a man 14 years his junior.

Having beaten the king of Rod Laver Arena in two of their previous three encounters, Jannik Sinner had a long night in Melbourne to consider the prospect of one of the biggest upsets in recent tennis history. He now has a lifetime to savour it, while Djokovic can ponder the Grand Slam that surprisingly got away.

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Sinner, a 22-year-old Italian with a thunderclap serve and forehand, handled the mounting pressure to calmly set about his business and punctuate his winning points with calm fists to the sky. After gaining a foothold in the match early in the first two sets, the fourth-seed dropped his serve but then broke Djokovic again instantly, extending his lead to 5-2 in the last set before the two traded holds to finish the match.

But above all, he handled the top-seeded Djokovic, who has been in the deepest of grooves, having won 33 straight Australian Open singles, stretching back to 2018. Buoyed by a rollicking crowd and a reinvigorated forehand, Sinner thwarted Djokovic's shot at immortality, outplaying the 24-time Grand Slam champion 6-1, 6-2, 6-7 (6/8), 6-3 on Friday.

"It was a very tough match," Sinner said at the post-match presentation. "I started off really well. He missed in the first two sets. I felt like he was not feeling that great on court so I just tried to keep pushing. Then in the third set I had match point and I missed the forehand but this is tennis. I just tried to be ready for the next set, which I started off really well."

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As the hyped-up semi-final showdown began, Djokovic looked out of sorts, as if he lacked his usual metronomic consistency. Although he led by a short margin in the first few minutes of the third set, Sinner quickly locked in, drawing the Serb into long rallies and sweeping up early unforced errors as the latter tried to escape them to no avail.

Djokovic admitted he was ‘outplayed' by Sinner. "I was, in a way, shocked with my level, you know, in a bad way," he told reporters. "There was not much I was doing right in the first two sets. I guess this is one of the worst Grand Slam matches I've ever played, at least that I remember."

"One of the things that I respect about Djokovic is how he never makes excuses for his losses. He is always humble and gracious in defeat and gives full credit to his opponent. There are certain players who claim they are injured after every loss and make all kinds of excuses, and I am glad that Djokovic is not like that…" a fan wrote. Truly, the Serb has the right presence of mind to mock himself in both low and high moments, but most importantly, he possesses the ability to lift an arena with vigorous energy (although this was nowhere to be seen on Friday), all the while remembering to respect his competitors and the game.

Though Djokovic was reluctant to make any predictions about how this season may pan out, he sounded an ominous warning to his rivals. Vowing to return for another shot at the title next year, the 36-year-old insisted his defeat was not the ‘beginning of the end'.

In tennis, where fortunes fluctuate with each precise stroke, Djokovic's response to defeat is not merely a reflexive rebound but a meticulously crafted symphony of grit, strategic recalibration, and an unwavering commitment to his craft. Or how else can one forget what happened after an agonising defeat to a 20-year-old Carlos Alcaraz took its toll on him in the Wimbledon final last year? The Serb lifted the US Open trophy as part of a 19-match unbeaten run.

Djokovic's setbacks on court serve not as impediments but as waypoints in his journey, inviting introspection, adaptation, and a fervent commitment to elevating his stature as the ‘venerable titan of tennis' in modern-era.

Perhaps, his rare losses underscore the poignant reality that even the most dominant athletes are susceptible to the capricious nature of winning and losing. Both coalesce to shape the narrative of a player's journey, but it is how one bounces back from failures that draw them closer to immortality. And Djokovic has done it not once or twice, but every time he has let himself down.

Thereupon, ‘write off Novak Djokovic at your peril'!

(With quotes from AP)