For the second match in a row at the 2024 US Open, Novak Djokovic produced a bad serving performance, which he addressed after the win over Laslo Djere in the second round.
The 37-year-old arrived in New York as one of the favorites to win the event. The Serbian's stock rose dramatically after his Paris Olympics win, with many analysts openly declaring him the favourite to win the US Open.
He certainly wouldn't disagree with them, as he fancied his chances, but his performance so far hasn't been that great. Djokovic cruised in his first match largely thanks to his superior talent, but it wasn't the best performance.
He certainly didn't serve as well as he had hoped he would, and that serving performance could get him in trouble against some of the best players in the world. His second match was equally troubling.
He once again mostly cruised on his talent alone, but the serving performance was far from ideal. He hit his first serve only 47% of the time, which might have been good enough for the second round but certainly won't be good enough in the later stages.
He's aware it's a problem because he told Nick Kyrgios during his on-court interview that the serving was a problem. He even joked that not everybody can serve as well as Kyrgios does.
"I served awful. Playing without a serve, you have to grind and run. Not everyone serves like you (Kyrgios). I guess I have to rely on my baseline game."
The Serbian expanded on his serving issues in the post-match press conference, admitting that he was struggling to find the right rhythm and tempo.
"I haven’t been really serving well first two matches here, so I’m still kind of trying to find that rhythm and tempo on the serve. If you don’t have a good percentage of first serves in, you have to work for your points, particularly against a player like Djere who is really good from baseline from both ends, forehand and backhand, just a very solid player."
"Likes to attack but he’s also comfortable defending and last year I remember we had a five-setter. So I knew coming into the match that if I don’t serve well, which was the case, that I’m going to have to really grind and work for my points a lot and that’s what I guess caused the two sets to be played over two hours."
Overall, Djokovic was happy to win, but certain things in his game need to be addressed. He's not at a championship-winning level yet, and the goal is to win the event, so there is a level he needs to reach in the coming days. It's up to him to get there.
"All in all, I think of course I have to be happy with the win and happy that in important moments I managed to play one ball more than him over the net, I guess find the right shots or anticipate well as I did on the set point in the second set — was lucky that he missed that forehand, was quite easy forehand."
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