On a tough mission

Novak Djokovic has made a bright start in his quest to win the calendar-year Grand Slam .

The leading men played overtime in Rod Laver Arena in the homestretch of the Australian Open this year, and they often exchanged pleasantries with Laver. Rafael Nadal expressed his gratitude that Laver, 73, one of the greatest to play the game, was courtside for their matches. Roger Federer, who has long had an affinity with Australian tennis, sat next to Laver in a television studio and compared notes with him on rivalries and eras. Novak Djokovic called him Mr Laver after meeting him for the first time and then apologized because nobody serves and volleys anymore.

“We are running around the baseline,” Djokovic said. “I’m sorry about that.”

But after all the baseline rallies were finally over in Laver Arena at well after midnight Monday morning, the only one of the game’s stars in position to be on equal terms with Laver this season was Djokovic.

Djokovic had a troubling autumn after winning the US Open in September, going down in a heap and a scream in Belgrade, Serbia, after tearing a rib muscle during a Davis Cup match against Argentina. When he returned, he looked short on energy and inspiration.

Back in Melbourne to defend his title, he was nowhere near as untouchable as he was in 2011. He struggled for breath and for balance in his final two marathon matches, against Andy Murray and Nadal.

But in the end it was all a false dawn for his rivals, as Djokovic ended up in the usual pose, holding the silverware even if he and Nadal required chairs during the ceremony that came after their 5:53-long final.

Djokovic later added another twist, grabbing a microphone and belting out the AC/DC song “Highway to Hell” on a stage at the Australian Open staff party on his way to a much more sedate postmatch news conference.

Bashful Djokovic most certainly is not, and his next tennis quest is now in need of a nickname. Will it be the Djoker Slam, the Djoko Slam or the Nole Slam if he becomes the first man since Laver in 1969 to hold all four Grand Slam singles titles?

Djokovic, brimming with talent and confidence, needs only one more: the French Open in June.

Roland Garros, in a sense, is his final frontier. It is the dusty kingdom ruled by Nadal, who has lost only one match on Paris clay and will be trying to break his tie with Bjorn Borg this year by winning his seventh singles title.

Seven is not Nadal’s lucky number at the moment. Although he still leads Djokovic, 16-14 overall, he has lost their last seven matches, including two on outdoor clay last year. He and Djokovic looked set for a meeting in the French Open final last year before Federer stopped Djokovic’s 43-match winning streak in the semifinals.

Djokovic has other plans this year. “I’m playing the best tennis of my life, and in 2011, I made back-to-back wins on the clay against Rafa,” he said.

‘`The semifinals of Roland Garros was an incredible match against Federer, and so it gives me enough reason to believe that actually I can go to the finals maybe this year, and I’m thinking about it. There is no secret about it, but again, it’s still a long way through.

“There is still many tournaments to come, but I will definitely prioritize Grand Slams and Olympic Games. That’s my aim this year.”

To preserve his health in an Olympic year, he does not plan to play Davis Cup, the annual team event that helped launch him into orbit when Serbia won it in December 2010. Djokovic views the 11-month season as a series of miniseasons punctuated by breaks for rest and training. He and his support team call the miniseasons “waves.”

“I think we need to do a similar wave strategy this year,” he said. “Because it’s going to be really difficult for me to decide which tournaments will have to be sacrificed in some ways, and I’ll have to do it, because I cannot play everything.”

His family’s tour event in Belgrade remains problematic, coming the week before back-to-back mandatory Masters 1000 events in Madrid and Rome. Too many clay-court events, particularly when one wins so often, would not bode well for Paris.

But some believe Djokovic is in position to think bigger. Mats Wilander, the outspoken former tennis champion, said that Djokovic, if healthy, was in position to make a run at Laver and the true Grand Slam by winning all four major tournaments in the same year.

Wilander said one of the few things holding Djokovic back was his tendency to telegraph his physical difficulties to his opponents. “The only reason maybe he doesn’t win a match is because he’s looking for energy and he’s showing all of us that he’s looking for it, and that’s unprofessional,” Wilander said.

“The only reason Nadal is in it is because he doesn’t look for it. It’s just there, and when Novak learns how to do that, he’s going to be kicking these guys’ tails for a long time.

“He’s just so clean with his strokes. It’s just, ‘OK, let me accelerate.’ And then boom. Nadal just doesn’t have that. It’s amazing, because Novak is cleaner than Federer. He’s like a Marat Safin who moves. It’s the same sort of power.”

Melbourne belonged to an even diminished Djokovic, and labels like the Big Four or the Big Three continue to seem outdated. Major men’s tennis, for now, is about the Big One, and he is still only 24 years old.