Australian Open 2019, Men's final: 3 things we learned

3. Djokovic dictated terms from the baseline

Djokovic has an unreal double-handed backhand

It is actually almost impossible to beat Djokovic in a baseline slugfest on a hard court, even more so when he is in as sublime a form as he was yesterday. He consistently hit the balls deep and low to Nadal and thereby did not allow the latter to hit his ferocious forehands with full power.

Moreover, Nadal also could not make Djokovic move sideways too frequently, and the latter hit some outrageous crosscourt winners from all angles. Djokovic’s double-handed backhand must feature alongside Pete Sampras’ serve among the best tennis shots of all time, and he literally decimated Nadal with those backhand winners. In all, Djokovic hit 34 winners yesterday, and reaffirmed his status as the greatest ever player on hard courts.

However, it would be really interesting to see how he fares against a genuine big-server with a good all-round game on hard courts. It is a pity that there are not too many players like that in the circuit at the moment. It would have been great to see Djokovic pitted against Pete Sampras in his prime in a hard court match. Still, it must be said that any player in the history of the game would have found it difficult to hold his own against the imperious Djokovic yesterday.