Djoko has less recovery time for final now

There were two sides to second men’s semi-final on Monday. For about two sets and-a-half on Saturday, Novak Djokovic was dominating the rallies against Andy Murray on Friday, being the more aggressive of the two. Then he became a little bit complacent and Andy began hitting the ball more, and to take his chances and play more aggressively to win the third set.

As you all know, the match was stopped at 3-3 in the fourth because of the rain and at a critical time. But both players came back strong on Saturday, I thought the first couple of games were as good as anybody can play on clay but overall Novak had just too much firepower, too many good ground strokes for Andy to cope with and the Scot just ran out of steam a little bit.

Having had to come out on Saturday means that Novak will play three days in a row and will have less recovery time before the final, which is definitely a bit of a disadvantage. It’s easier when you get a day of, no doubt about it. But what’s the choice here? You don’t really have one. Of course this is not the ideal preparation one would want before a final.

Perhaps it is time the French Open looked into putting up floodlights so matches can go on later into the night. When you have two long matches at the later stages of the tournament, there is always the risk that the guys who have to come back and finish a match the next day – either because of bad weather or light – are at a disadvantage. I think Roland Garros should look into this so that players can play at night and finish matches. Melbourne and New York have it and I feel it would benefit the tournament and the players.

There is the fact that Novak is now just a match away from a career Grand Slam. Still, it is just another match to be played, and it will be a tough one against Stan Wawrinka on Sunday.

The Swiss has had a day off, so here’s hoping that Novak remains strong physically and mentally enough to get the better of him. The plan right now is to use whatever time we have till the match starts to recover both physically and mentally and to get in the right state of mind to cope with another challenge. And a challenge it will be.

Whenever Stan is playing well, he is one of the best players in the world. He is not the most consistent but when he’s on, he’s very good.

Even if I had to be objective, I would not call this one as I never speak about Novak’s chances. All I will say is that one must always try their best and if you do that, that is half the story.

(Gameplan)