Djokovic n.2? No, rather n.3!

The victory in Dubai, clinched after a difficult match to say the least, gave him his 17th ATP title.

Not bad at all, considering we are talking about a 22-year-old player, with a Slam title already under his belt (Australian Open 2008), a Masters Cup (Shanghai 2008) and five Masters 1000 (Miami and Canada 2007, Indian Wells and Rome 2008, Paris Bercy 2009). Are we then talking about a champion? No doubt about it. But is he really the second best player in the world, as the present ATP rankings tells us?

Actually not everybody thinks so. On the contrary, in a comment on our website somebody even defined him - and I think it was an overstatement - the worst n.2 ever. That reader forgot that there were even some n.1 players probably weaker than Djokovic (Moya and Ferrero the first names that come to mind), but we sure had players who reached the n.2 spot who didn't even have a fraction of the Serbian's class (Correctja and Norman to name a couple).

The problem, though, is not comparing Nole with past n.1 or 2 players, but rather answering the question in the title: at the moment, does he deserve the second spot in the rankings? Since I don't want to hide, I confess I find it hard to associate Djokovic with the n.2 player in the world. And to say the truth I am surprised by this, because since his exceptional summer in 2007 I predicted (once again mistakenly) a future of dominance for him.
Last year, when I interviewed Raffaella Reggi (former Italian pro player) for our website, I asked her, among other things, what was happening to Nole. The reasons for his involution, already evident. The answer from the present Sky commentator was clear: "Unlike Nadal or Murray, he didn't raise the bar much technically. Every year Nadal achieved important technical improvements, on his serve, backhand, volley. Murray had a good physical progress too. Djokovic more or less stayed where he was. And at this level these things count, because your opponents get to know you and how you play, so everything becomes more difficult. Also mentally, I think he has a less positive and aggressive attitude compared to last year". This was in April 2009, 10 more months passed, his ranking even improved, but Nole's game seems to be always the same.

The first of Nole's problem maybe is not even technical, it's his calendar. The guy plays too much. A whopping 97 matches only in 2009 (78-19 his record), while Federer had 73 (62-11), 82 for an injured Nadal (68-14), 77 for Murray (65-12). Not considering Nadal (the only one that, without the injury, probably would have got closer to that number) I think 24 matches more than Federer and 20 more than Murray are definitely too many.
He also loses too often. Among the first four ranked players, he's the one who lost the most matches, both in number and in percentage: 19/97 is in fact 19.5% (higher than Federer's 15%, Murray's 15.5% and Nadal's 17%).
But I think the most remarkable data come from the analysis of his losses. Here we find out that Djokovic loses many more matches as a favourite compared to the other top 4. In fact examining the average ranking of the players who won against the Serbian in 2009 and the beginning of 2010 we obtain a result of 14.33 (Gulbis 53, Nieminen 40, Roddick 9, Tsonga 12, Nadal 1, Ferrer 12, Roddick 7, Murray 4, Nadal 1, Nadal 1, Nadal 1, Kohlschreiber 31, Haas 41, Haas 34, Roddick 5, Federer 1, Federer 1, Davydenko 8, Soderling 9, Tsonga 10 and Youzhny 20). Playing the same little game with the other top 4, we have for Federer's victorious opponents a ranking of 9.08 (and it would be a brilliant 5.45 without the blunder in Paris against Benneteau); an even better 7.56 for Nadal, even with all the injuries sustained last year by the spaniard (6.4 without the famous loss against Soderling at Roland Garros); 12.28 the average for Murray's conquerors.
Of course, in more than a year a bad day here and there happens to everybody, no doubt. But in Djokovic's case the bad days were really too many, losing against 8 non-top 10 players (and often rather far from the top 10). Federer only lost against 2 non-top 10 players: Wawrinka (16) and as mentioned above Benneteau (49). Nadal not even in his worst period lost against players with "low" ranking, only 3 non-top 10: Monfils (13), Soderling (25) and Cilic (15). Murray is the closest to Djokovic in this particular ranking, having lost against 6 non-top 10 players: Verdasco (15), Monaco (58), Gonzalez (12), Cilic (17), Stepanek (14) e Tipsarevic (39).
So now let's come back to Raffella Reggi and her initial statement: Djokovic has stopped his progress technically. Even worse, he regressed. His famous down-the-line backhand, which froze the opponents in the period 2007/08, is disappearing. The serve, as we're seeing in Dubai in these days, is much weaker. The forehand gives him fewer errors - since the ball stays on the strings a fraction of a second longer than in the past - but a lot less penetrating. All in all, Nole is anyway a champion and will win for many years to come. We wish we had someone like him! But maybe he's not the Champion - with a capital C - that I expected to admire.

Conclusions? Nothing scientific of course, but - with all due respect to the ATP rankings - I really believe Nole found himself n.2 taking advantage (and not even too well) of Nadal's injuries and Murray's not outstanding 2009 (similarly to his own). At the end of the day, n.4 for sure, n.3 maybe, n.2 really not.
 

Enzo Cherici