Opinion: Novak Djokovic's toughest opponent at Tokyo Olympics might be the heat
TOKYO – Given his dominance over the men’s Grand Slam events this year, Novak Djokovic came to the Olympics with the aura of a man who cannot be beaten or even bothered on his way to a gold medal.
But even as he’s managed to outrun his biggest rivals and position himself to rewrite tennis history, one of Djokovic’s biggest nemeses has followed him to Tokyo: the heat.
And not just any heat.
As the Olympic tennis event began Saturday, even players who are used to the Australian summer, muggy Miami or any other hot spot around the globe, were taken aback by the conditions they faced at the Ariake Tennis Park. Midday temperatures registered as high as 92 degrees with relentless humidity and no trace of the breeze that had made practice sessions over the previous few days a bit more tolerable.
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“We heard and expected the conditions would be very tough, but before you actually come here and experience that, you don’t really know how difficult it is,” Djokovic said. “I felt like we were trapped in hot air.”
Despite the discomfort he experienced in his 61 minutes on the court Saturday, Djokovic’s quest to add the gold medal to the three Grand Slams he’s already won this year got off to a routine start with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien.
But afterwards, he implored the International Tennis Federation to start matches later in the afternoon rather than at 11 a.m., allowing for players to take advantage of dropping temperatures when the sun starts to go down at roughly 5:30 p.m. In response to a question from Paste BN Sports about whether any consideration was being given to starting later, an ITF spokesperson said the schedule was owed to a number of factors.
“The decision to retain 11am was made based on data, a nine-day event and to accommodate factors such as local authority restrictions due to COVID-19 and the unpredictability of the weather,” the statement said. “Extreme conditions will always put pressure on a schedule and make an optimum schedule challenging. Rainfall is as much of an issue as extreme heat. An Extreme Weather Policy is in place. Tokyo 2020 competition officials have set procedures to monitor the heat stress index which determine whether play should be modified.”
How hot was it? During changeovers, an air generator connected to a hose was available to blow cold air directly on players. How hot was it? Daniil Medvedev, the No. 2 ranked player in the world, covered his head in cold towels and complained about having only a minute instead of 90 seconds on the changeovers. Frances Tiafoe, the top-ranked member of the American men’s team, said he sweated through his shoes during his doubles match alongside Rajeev Ram.
“It was insane,” Tiafoe said. “It hurts. But it’s not just you. Everyone’s dealing with it. It’s not an excuse.”
Even for American players who are used to playing in high temperatures and humidity when they train in Florida, this was something different. Ram said it wasn’t even anything like the Australian Open, which can have some of the hottest days on tour.
“It’s like the summer in the US but worse,” Ram said. “It’s humid, it’s hot. We’ve been talking about it nonstop and we got here and we were like, it’s incredible. I wish it was Australia.”
Though heat may have been the biggest topic among tennis players on Saturday, Tiafoe and Ram provided one of the few highlights of the day for the Americans in edging the sixth-seeded Russian team of Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev, 6-7, 7-6 and 12-10 in a wild deciding tiebreaker where they were forced to save match point.
Ram, 37, won a silver medal in Rio playing mixed doubles with Venus Williams and has been one of the most successful doubles players in the world over the last decade. Though he never teamed with Tiafoe before Saturday, beating a Russian team with pair of top-25 singles players gives them a promising start toward a deep run in this event.
“We’re here for one reason. We’re here to win a medal,” Ram said. “Our mindset is just to play for each other, play for our team, play for our country and compete hard. Obviously, OK, we don’t have a three-year rapport of playing doubles together, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the Olympics.”
Their win salvaged a poor day for the Americans, who saw Jessica Pegula lose to Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic, 6-3, 6-3, Tommy Paul get knocked out in straight sets by Russia’s Aslan Karatsev and Tennys Sandgren lose decisively to Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta.
Tiafoe returns Sunday for his first-round singles match against South Korea’s Kwon Soon-woo.
Players don’t expect conditions in Tokyo to change in the immediate future, though there is rain in the forecast for early next week and an expectation that matches will start later once the draw reaches the later rounds.
That would be welcome news for Djokovic, who despite being one of the fittest players in the history of the game has not enjoyed playing in the hottest temperatures and has sometimes allowed it to impact his tennis. He said there were moments Saturday where he event felt a bit dizzy on the court against Dellien, even as he cruised to victory.
“It’s not the first time we get to experience tough conditions,” he said. “U.S. Open, Miami, we’re an outdoor sport that chases the sun, so we play in some hot temperatures. But I spoke to a couple guys in the locker room and all of them said this is probably the toughest they had experienced day to day. Australia can get hot one day, two days and then cools down. Here it’s every single day. It’s challenging, what can I say?”