That's why I never support him,there is a lot going in his matches.The medical timeout,bathroom breaks and suspicious drinks.He is always playing some game on his opponents.The elixir he always gets must contain something that makes him super human at 36 yrs.He must accept that the jig is up.. US Open is not his this year.
I think the USO is his best last chance to win another slam. Some people will say, WTF, Australia! But Australia is almost half a year away, and he’ll be nearer 37. That’s an age where even his miracle swig might struggle. Especially when Carlos is racing so fast that a disaster in Paris was turned into gold in London. It’s possible that a terrible disappointment in Cincy might similarly be turned into gold in New York. He’s moving quick. He has the Midas touch. Everything is a new experience for him, but he’s gobbling them up and they’re making him better.
By the time the Australian Open comes around, Carlos could be at that brilliant stage of a great career where he finally knows what to do because he’s experienced it often enough, and not because he understands it theoretically through his coach and his YouTube premium subscription. He could be at that stage.
So Novak will be still a contender in Australia, but he’s gotten patsy draws there the last 3 times he played. Let’s face it. Floating corpses in the final. Similar to his previous 2 Wimbledons, where Nick Kyrgios represented the high point that western civilisation had to offer. Think about that.
Then Novak faced Carlos.
The USO is a better opportunity for Novak also because Carlos is still in that beginners stage for greatness where he’s now having to face the prospect of defending a slam title. Try remember how Novak managed that. That’s not so easy, and it’s very different to last year. Carlos can’t help this. We get frustrated by his cramps and his bp percentage but he’s having to figure things out in real time, and they’re complex because he’s having to basically play blindfolded speed chess simultaneously against a dozen hungry grandmasters while learning to pedal a unicycle, because that’s part of the deal. You fall off, you lose. And yet to us, we often just see it as being more or less the same thing as last year, but a bit different.
It’s a lot different. It’s a huge difference and he might have to fall off a few more times to gain the experience he needs. Nobody can know that yet.
I’d say that the best comparison with Carlos situation isn’t necessarily Rafa, because although they’re both exceptional and tough and Spanish and high achieving as teenagers. Rafa had a strong number one who was getting even more attention, and was facing the immediate expectation of greater success. The closest we’ve seen to Carlos is Boris Becker, who at 17 transformed the sport while facing huge attention and pressure to win every match he played - because he looked like he could..
