Comment WIMBLEDON, England — Wimbledon, deprived of the tantalizing forecast of thunder for Friday, went ahead anyway and found itself cruising towards the tantalizing forecast of thunder for Sunday. He lost a would-be men’s semi-final between Nick Kyrgios and Rafael Nadal when Nadal had to retire on Thursday night, but won a men’s final between Kyrgios and Novak Djokovic when Djokovic dug into his talent pool and produced one of the best. It will be Djokovic, superhuman problem solver, against Kyrgios, supersonic problem maker. You can see the emotional outbursts here. The final arrangements came when Djokovic, in Friday’s lone semi-final, understood himself and Cameron Norrie as he does time and time again and whoever is there. Just as he was knocked out in the quarter-finals by Jannik Sinner here, in the final by Matteo Berrettini last year, in the 2021 French final by Stefanos Tsitsipas and on and on, he told his nerves to quit and produced his usual string of stunning shots. and won, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4, against a player ranked 12th in the world. Rafael Nadal withdraws from Wimbledon with an abdominal injury Of his 68 Grand Slam tournaments, he has 32 finals appearances. “I mean, every match, every Grand Slam I play at this stage of my career,” the 35-year-old said, “there’s a lot on the line.” This time, the line will move. A first Grand Slam final for the 27-year-old Kyrgios, who is the background of the sport, will give Djokovic, first of all, Kyrgios’ traumatic grass serve. “On grass, I would guess it’s even harder to read his serve,” Djokovic said, “and to return because he has so many free points.” “It puts extra pressure on your serve.” And: “He has great hands.” It will feature one of the silliest stats in sports: Kyrgios’ 2-0 record against Djokovic, with the two matches coming within two weeks: March 2, 2017, in Acapulco, Mexico, and March 15, 2017, in Indian Wells. , California. Djokovic did not win any of the four sets. He found the service undetectable in the thin desert air of eastern California. He saw some aces go by — 25 the first time, 14 the second — and then never saw Kyrgios again in any practice or match after that. “I guess it will be a close game,” Djokovic said. I hope I can be at the desired level, then it really is a mental game in the end, who stays tougher and calmer in the decisive moments. As he tries to solve enough to win a 21st Grand Slam title, his opponent will reach a juncture he thought he would never reach even with the talent that everyone has spotted since his youth, a talent that is often combined with the word ” dangerous”. Kyrgios will come in as a player who is known to play better against the best players. He will arrive after planning how to play Nadal – he was 1-1 here – as, he said on Friday, “I really wanted to see how this third chapter would go” and, “I’m sure at the end of the day, everybody wanted to they see us going to war out there.’ That’s all except, probably, the tennis balls. A pioneer makes a Wimbledon final and happiness is everywhere He arrives after spending more of the fortnight in his rented house and less in the pub or on his phone than in previous years, all of which he considers relevant. “I felt like earlier in my career, I didn’t realize that those days off and practice are so critical,” he said. Or, as Djokovic put it, “Honestly, as a tennis fan, I’m glad he’s in the finals because he has so much talent.” He arrives having gained some sort of wisdom from the 2022 Australian Open men’s doubles, which he won with Australian Thanasis Kokkinakis over fellow Australians Matthew Ebden and Max Purcell. He arrived at his 30th Grand Slam tournament with some upgraded understanding of the pace of Grand Slam tournaments, long after, ranked 40th, he entered a first-round demolition here of Britain’s Paul Jubb, ranked 219, in which Kyrgios fended off 7-5 in the fifth set and also spat in the direction of a trolling witness. “You can be four points away from defeat [in the first round]”, said Kyrgios, “then 11 days later you’re in the final, so…” “Good waves,” said a man who was used to making them and tossing him around. And then he arrives after a “shocking sleep” on Thursday night – meaning a bad one – and “so much anxiety” and “feeling so nervous already”, even when he can go back to childhood in Canberra and marvel. “Yeah, I think it’s just hilarious,” he said, “because, like, I don’t think I should be someone like me. Like, I’m looking [a photo he posted online of himself as a child]I grew up in Canberra, the courts I trained on were horrible and now I have the opportunity to play in the Wimbledon final.” Now he finds someone who solves the riot as well as anyone who ever solved the riot. “For me,” Djokovic said, “it’s definitely on a different level because I have to deal with different things that are also off the court, as the crowd is probably on my opponents’ side most of the time. This is something I have been used to throughout my career. The more you experience these types of situations, not the better you feel, but just the more prepared you feel. You know what to expect. “It’s always about handling your nerves better than your opponent might be handling his. The internal battle is always the biggest. In training where you don’t have people or expectations, you play great. Then you come into the match and you realize it’s amazing how the whole game can fall apart” — like in Friday’s first set — “really just because you feel like you’re tense, then no shots are going right. Your legs are static and slow. “Something happens in a race, then suddenly it’s completely different and you fly. Everything flows. All the time there are these, let’s say, challenges that you face internally as well as externally. It really is a constant battle. All these obstacles you have to face. Really, I think it’s an amazing exercise to be in the moment because being present is, I feel like, the best state that an athlete is looking for because then you can, I guess, block out or turn off certain things and distractions and really focus only to the next point. This is the zone everyone is talking about, it’s really hard to get to but really easy to lose.” However, he stays there so often.
