By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, May 24, 2017
“When I’m watching Djokovic and he’s playing at his best, nobody plays closer to the style of the style Andre played,” Brad Gilbert told Tennis Now.
Photo credit: Mark Peterson/Corleve
Watching Novak Djokovic matches evoke a sense of déjà vu in Brad Gilbert.
The ESPN analyst and former coach of Andre Agassi sees a lot of Agassi’s punishing baseline aggression in Djokovic.
Q & A: Alexander Zverev
“When I’m watching Djokovic and he’s playing at his best, nobody plays closer to the style of the style Andre played,” Gilbert told Tennis Now in an ESPN conference call today. “He hits the ball big to big, safe margins in the court. A lot of times when Djoker is playing his best tennis, he doesn’t hit a lot of winners and very few unforced errors—a lot like Agassi played and he plays taking time away from you on the baseline.”
Djokovic announced in Rome he hired Agassi as his new coach on a trial basis.
Since winning the 2016 Roland Garros to complete the career Grand Slam, Djokovic has won just two titles in his last 14 tournaments—Toronto and Doha—and concedes he's struggled with motivation and confidence at times.
Former world No. 4 Gilbert, who also coached Andy Roddick, Andy Murray and Kei Nishikori, said Agassi had declined prior coaching offers because of his commitments to his family and his charter school, but believes Agassi's experience can be an asset to Djokovic.
“I think it’s really exciting Andre is going to coach for the first time,” Gilbert said. “A lot of players have approached him before. He’s been very busy. He just opened up another school in San Antonio over the weekend. And his son Jaden is a five-tool baseball player, who has a really good chance to be a first-round draft pick in 2020, so they’re heavily involved in that.”
“I think what he can bring to Novak is Andre played his best tennis from 29 on. Djokovic just turned 30. So today’s 30 is like 25 used to be. Andre brings an incredible amount of knowledge, wisdom, passion. I think more importantly at the start is just getting to know each other and feel each other out. And then it will be up to Andre to figure out how many weeks he can allocate. I think the potential is for an exciting partnership.”
In a conference call with the media to promote ESPN.com’s upcoming coverage of Roland Garros network analysts and Hall of Famers Chrissie Evert and Pam Shriver both suggested Agassi can help revitalize the world No. 2.
Hiring Agassi is a message of intent, said Shriver, who views the pairing as Djokovic's attempt to reassert his competitive identity emulating Agassi’s baseline aggression.
“I think Djokovic is sort of telling us by bringing Andre aboard how Djokovic really feels he should be playing, which is standing toe-to-toe on the baseline, driving the ball off both sides,” Shriver told the media. “When you close your eyes and think about Novak’s great matches in the last four or five years, he was just relentless. Even though he played as good defense as anybody, his offense was also unbelievable, his movement is superior and almost second to none.
"I think Djkovic is telling us that he wants to be able to play that kind of aggressive, baseline, attacking, relentless tennis the way that Agassi played.”
Reigning Roland Garros champion Djokovic and 1999 champion Agassi launched their partnership during this practice week in Paris.
Seven-time Roland Garros champion Evert, who amassed a clay-court record 125-match winning streak, suggests the pair could potentially connect a profound level.
“I think on the personal side of it and not that I want to use the word ‘spiritual’, but there is something about the both of them that they seem try to be more evolved and try to be a bit more focused,” Evert told Tennis Now. “They’re deep thinkers. And I think he picked someone in Andre who he aspires to be like and they have a lot in common.
"They both are known for their laser-like focus. They're both very Zen-like in the way they play, their returns. I think it's a perfect choice for him at this time. But I think it's going to be, again, more of their deep talks rather than strategy that's going to get him out of this slump that he's in. Hopefully, it will do the trick.”
Initially, Gilbert sees the partnership processing through a learning phase before Agassi can impart any technical suggestions.
“When you’re just jumping on board with somebody it’s definitely not going to be technical the week before the French,” Gilbert said. “You’re getting to know somebody. I think for Andre it will be incredibly important spending some dinners together, spending quality time understanding (each other). And then it becomes a lot more about tactical and looking for patterns and things that you can talk about and breaking down matches.”
It was through a dinner conversation with Gilbert that Agassi experienced an epiphany that changed his career.
In his memoir, Open, Agassi recalls a dinner with Gilbert in a Miami restaurant that convinced him to hire the Winning Ugly author as his coach based on the practical advice and motivation dispensed.
“You don’t have to be the best in the world every time you go out there,” Gilbert told Agassi. “You just have to be better than one guy. Instead of you succeeding, make him fail. Better yet, let him fail. It’s all about odds and percentages.”
Gilbert believes odds favor a Djokovic resurgence because he’s well balanced off both wings, he can take the ball on the rise like Agassi, he remains one of the best movers and highest percentage players in the sport and the resurgence of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will inspire the 12-time Grand Slam champion that time is on his side.
“Really important for Djokovic to get back to what you brought up: In tennis you’ve just got to win 52 or 53 percent of the points,” Gilbert said. “That’s not like winning 60 or 65 percent—you’ve got to be a little bit better than the opponent and you win a huge amount of time. I think that’s something that is attainable.
“Trying to be too good sometimes can get you into trouble. I do think Djoker at 30—and he’s a young 30—seeing where Federer is going to be 36 in a couple of months I think it’s just getting back to the confidence of winning week and week out and building up that equity. He plays a great match against Thiem and then has a down match against Zverev. I think that was a good sign and I think he’s trending up in the right direction heading into the most important two months of the season. “