After a historic 2011 season, the pressure on the Men’s Tour in 2012 was on Novak Djokovic, having to once again prove himself and defend the colossal number of points. The Serbian could not repeat those numbers, but there was nothing wrong with his tennis.
He got six titles and secured the number 1 of the year with a wide advantage over Roger Federer. One of the three crowns he defended was the Canadian Open, arriving in Toronto just a week after the disappointing London Olympics.
Novak lost two tight matches against Andy Murray and Juan Martin Del Potro in London to come up empty handed and no medal. Djokovic quickly left the grass of Wimbledon behind and played at a high level in Canada to win the third trophy of that event.
In the title match, the Serb beat Richard Gasquet 6-3 6-2 on August 12 to clinch his 12th Masters 1000 title, leaving Pete Sampras with 11. Djokovic stayed close to Roger Federer in the ATP ranking list with those 1000 points, giving his best to defend as many and return to the throne.
Djokovic lost serve once in four matches against Bernard Tomic, Sam Querrey, Tommy Haas and Janko Tipsarevic. He settled into a good rhythm and dropped the Frenchman in 62 minutes for the seventh victory in eight meetings. Dominating on the first and second serves, Novak let eight points slip in nine service games, saving all four break chances and mounting the pressure on Richard, who was unable to deal with it.
Gasquet only won five of 17 second serves and suffered three breaks from as many chances offered to Novak to finish runner-up for the second time in Canada.
McEnroe defends Nole Djokovic
Former World No. 1 and seven-time Grand Slam winner John McEnroe has once again come forward to criticize the US government.
“Well, first of all, I think it’s BS,” McEnroe said. “That’s what I think. He should be allowed to play. My personal opinion is that I’ve been vaccinated, I had the booster shot, and that’s up to the individual.
If I were him and I’m not Novak Djokovic, you know, he’s won a lot more Majors than me and it’s because he has dug in his heels and found that will that very few people in any sport have ever found. That’s part of what has made him so great.
He sticks to his guns and is perfectly entitled to make the decision. The guy is one of the greatest athletes in any sport. He’s very careful about anything he puts in his body, so it’s frustrating to see at this point that he’s not allowed to enter the country because he’s not vaccinated.
It’s really unfortunate but that’s the rule that we have right now in the government. I don’t agree with it but that’s c’est la vie at the moment,” McEnroe said.
