Kerim Okten/European Pressphoto Agency
Novak Djokovic reacts during his Wimbledon semifinal match against Juan Martín del Potro on Friday.
WIMBLEDON, England — In an age of Twitter and text messages; of instant gratification and challenged attention spans, men’s tennis continues – despite all the ferocious currents to the contrary -- to excel at long form.
The marathon men were at it again on Friday, this time on Centre Court at Wimbledon in the sunlight, where yet another pair of powerful, evenly matched rivals relentlessly and good-naturedly sent each other scrambling, lunging, sprawling to every straight line and corner of the most famous patch of grass in the game.
“It was one of the best matches I have been a part of; one of the most exciting, definitely,” said the eventual winner Novak Djokovic.
That is well and truly quite a statement considering how many keepsake matches Djokovic has lived, laughed and suffered through in recent years.
He already had played two just this year: his terrific, high quality five-set victory over Stan Wawrinka in the fourth round of the Australian Open and the clay-court chef d’oeuvre of a French Open semifinal that ended up with Rafael Nadal celebrating and Djokovic ruing what might have been.
Friday’s 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 6-7 (6), 6-3 victory over Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina now rightfully joins the club.
At four hours and 43 minutes, it was the longest semifinal in the history of Wimbledon, the oldest tournament in tennis, and yet it so rarely dragged; so rarely gave the crowd the slightest desire for resolution even if their own Andy Murray was being delayed from taking the court because of all this guts and brilliance on the full stretch.
They do have world-class wingspans, Del Potro and Djokovic. Del Potro is 6-foot-6, or 1.98 meters, and can produce astounding and precisely controlled power from the corners, particularly his forehand corner, with one of his wunder-thunder-strokes late in the fourth set clocking in at 113 miles per hour and leaving Djokovic staring at the spot where it had just landed in disbelief.
But Djokovic, the game’s elastic man, repeatedly returned the favor: stretching into splits in the backcourt and the forecourt to transform Del Potro’s rightful winners into extended rallies.
“It was a really high-level match during four hours, hitting so hard the ball,” Del Potro said, looking happier than one might have expected. “I think it was unbelievable to watch but of course I’m sad because I was so close.”
In truth, he was and he was not. Yes, Del Potro played and still lost a great first set. Yes, he had chances to take command of the third set before losing it in a tiebreaker. And yes, above all, he bravely saved two match points in the fourth-set tiebreaker to extend the match — quite deservedly — into a fifth set.
But Djokovic, one of the sport’s great managers of risk and reward, was never anywhere near the brink of defeat, and he will now have a chance to win his second Wimbledon against Murray, who defeated Jerzy Janowicz in Friday’s second semifinal.
“In the end I think he played unbelievable,” Del Potro said. “I played my best tennis ever on grasscourt for a long time, but it was not enough to beat the number one in the world.”
It is not as if the 8th-seeded Del Potro did not know how to beat Djokovic on grass. He did it here at the All England Club just last year in the bronze-medal match at the Olympics: a best-of-three set affair that contained all the emotion of best-of-five.
Del Potro then beat him again in the semifinals of the prestigous hard-court event in Indian Wells in March.
But those results remain exceptions to the rule in their rivalry. Djokovic has now won 9 of their 12 matches and has won all four of their matches in Grand Slam tournaments.
Djokovic has an edge in mobility, even if Del Potro moves remarkably well for man of his size. Djokovic has an edge in versatility, even if Del Potro can do plenty of damage in the forecourt as well as the backcourt. But even if Del Potro has the edge in raw, flat power, Djokovic also believed he had the edge on Friday in staying power.
“I have lost a long match in French Open just a few weeks ago. You can't win all the matches. But I know that when we get to the fifth set, when I play a top player at the later stages of a major event especially, this is where your physical strength but also mental ability to stay tough can, you know, decide the winner of that match.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 5, 2013
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the player who lost to Andy Murray. He is Jerzy Janowicz, not Jery Janowicz.
