Thread by @Yolitatennis

A THREAD ABOUT NOVAK DJOKOVIC AND WIMBLEDON
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The Canada Masters is about to start and I haven't celebrated properly Novak's 4th Wimbledon title, by far the sweetest of them all.

So I decided to ramble on...

If you care to join me. 😀🍷

Who would have thought, when Novak was just starting out, that he would find himself holding twice as many Wimbledon titles as USO ones?
Were we not told that grass was not his thing?
(Never mind that he made a Wimbledon SF at the age of 20, who cares about facts 😉)

So the king of hardcourts turned out to be a grass legend as well. 😍
Only 3 men have won more Wimbledon titles than him in the Open Era.
If he can't play on grass, who can? 😂
Wimbledon has been a special tournament for Novak. All his titles there have been meaningful&symbolic.

2011
The crowning of a splendid assault on Fedal.
Novak clinched the #1 by making the Wimbledon final, after a 43-match winning streak and 7 wins over Fedal.
But of course pundits decided that he needed to beat Nadal in the final to prove that he deserved the #1. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

2014
In a weekend, Novak won Wimbledon&regained the #1 ranking from Rafa.
This was especially sweet because he beat Federer in the final, and it came after a series of grand slam finals lost by Novak.
I like to rewatch this final with pre-match commentary included:

How perfect Roger looked against Wawrinka&Raonic. How bad Novak had looked against Cilic.😈
Novak truly rained on their parade then, everybody had crowned Roger in advance.
Never did we imagine that a much bigger parade would be rained upon by Novak 4 years later. 😜😂

2015
We heard, again, how perfect Roger looked against Murray. If Murray could do nothing, what could poor Novak do?
Beat Roger in the Wimbledon final again, of course. 😍
Novak was in the middle of the best 20 months ever posted by a male tennis player.
Unreal domination. 😍

2016
Novak kept getting scheduled to play big hitters on Court 1: Cilic in the QF in 2014, Anderson in R16 in 2015 (2 very tough 5-setters). Querrey in 2016 in R32.
We know what happened. Querrey won, was cheered even on Centre Court and became an instant hero. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Which brings us to 2018. A title so sweet that I still have to pinch myself to believe it.
For starters, it came after the most difficult couple of years in Novak's career.
He struggled with injuries, experimented with his team, took time off, came back too soon...
Tough time.

During this period, pundits got busy re-writing history. They couldn't bury Novak fast enough.
The years of domination, which I call #AgeOfNovak, were reduced to a foot-note in the great Fedal narrative. A year of consistency while Fedal struggled with injury.
The gloating... 🙄

2018: Wimbledon celebrates 50 years of Open Era tennis.They want an unforgettable event.
Paid scribes start talking about the 2008 final as the best tennis match ever.🙄
A veritable treatise is written about it, longer than War and Peace and deeper than anything by Musil.😉

To go with the treatise, a cinematographic masterpiece is produced which would make Tarkovsky die with envy: Strokes of Genius.
It was decided that *everybody* wanted a dream final: a replay of the 2008 one (with a different result, of course, presumably for symmetry).

The stage was set. The script was perfect.
When the time came, the draw reflected *everybody's* wishes. Roger ruling over a depleted top half,Nadal in the tougher bottom half,Novak in the toughest quarter.
Organisers&scribes buzzing with excitement about a Hollywood dream final.

What we got instead was a real-life fairy-tale. 😍😍😍
Novak's seeding made it easier for organisers to send him, not only to Court 1, but even Court 2. Nadal always on Centre Court, of course.
It didn't matter. Novak kept winning.
Then Novak had to face the home favourite.

The match against Kyle Edmund was crucial. It was very tight and Novak was robbed of a break by the umpire, who awarded kyle a point that should have been Novak's for 4 different reasons.
Novak faced a heckling, insulting crowd, who interrupted him, mocked him, cheered errors.

Novak won, anyway.
Pundits called Novak a "pantomime villain", talked about his "anger". But #nolefam saw something we hadn't seen in ages. We saw SPARTA NOLE... and our hearts were full. ❤️❤️❤️
The time came for Novak to face a big hitter on Court 1, last match.

Like last year,organisers refused to move the match to CC,although it was free,and were very close to postponing the match.
But the match started, after 7pm. Last match of the session.
Novak produced a clinic&won with 4 minutes to spare.
Novak was "here to stay" as he tweeted.😍

By now, Novak requested Centre Court for his QF against Nishikori. He made the request public, probably to avoid people saying he had requested to play in unfavourable conditions, like they'd done in Australia.
His request was granted&Roger was sent to C1 to face a big hitter.😳

Roger did not survive, which makes one wonder what would have happened if Roger hadn't got such preferential treatment all these years.
The dream final was off. 😢😂
But we got instead a truly epic SF between Rafa & Novak. To remind us of the joy of watching unscripted sport.

The scheduling meant that Novak had to play 3 days in a row&also that there was a manufactured controversy over the roof. Trying in vain to establish a false equivalence between breaking the rules in Australia to help one player&following the rules in Wimbledon.
Pftt.🤷🏻‍♀️😂

But at the end, Novak held the Wimbledon trophy.

Beating Roger's conqueror in the final, having played a classic SF against the #1 player.

The erasure of Novak Djokovic, which was almost complete, is now an impossibility.

Novak chose Wimbledon to announce his comeback. 😍

We didn't get a scripted Hollywood final.

We got a real-life fairy-tale, written by a legend.

We got to witness that legend come back, after struggling for 2 years, thanks to his humility, his love for the sport, his discipline, his raw talent.

My cup runneth over. 😍🍷😍