By Chris Oddo | Tuesday May 23, 2017
Is it time to start loading up on shares of Novak Djokovic again?
Now that we know that Andre Agassi will be Djokovic’s coach-by-trial at Roland Garros this year, and likely beyond, what should we expect from the pairing?
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Good question, right? Agassi has never coached, and Djokovic has never been in this type of a funk before, so there are a lot of unknowns as we head into the summer Grand Slam season.
But there is one critical piece of information that we have seen validated time and time again: New coaches work, and so do new celebrity coaches. Agassi clearly fits into the latter category, and if we dissect Djokovic’s struggles thus far this season, we can see why a person—a SUPERCOACH!—like Agassi could help him.
First let’s look at how some other celebrity coaches have fared when they entered into partnerships with big-name ATP Players. Ivan Lendl has guided Andy Murray to all of his major titles and the No.1 ranking; Boris Becker played a huge role in Djokovic’s late-career domination, which will go down as one of the most impressive periods of prolonged dominance in ATP history; Roger Federer and Stefan Edberg had a fantastic run together and the Swede played a huge role in helping Federer return to Grand Slam finals—three of them in two years, in fact, and it was only the indomitable Djokovic that kept Federer from winning any.
John McEnroe’s tenure with Milos Raonic was short, and McEnroe wasn’t the only influence in Raonic’s camp, but the Canadian did reach his only Grand Slam final at Wimbledon last year with McEnroe on board as an advisor.
That’s enough proof that when a top player brings on one of the greats of the game to coach him it can, and usually does, work.
From a tactical standpoint, Agassi will certainly be able to give Djokovic some help—if he needs it. But Agassi will most likely contribute most where Becker did, and where Lendl seems to make the most impact with Murray: Belief.
Becker was brought in by Djokovic to help the Serb get over the hump in the biggest moments, and nobody will argue with the results—six Grand Slam titles including four in a row at one point. Becker’s detractors will say that Djokovic was already destined for this level of greatness, but surely Becker helped the Serb sharpen and maintain the competitive edge that he used to cut through his competition like a steak knife through butter.
Agassi is a different kind of character than Becker altogether, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be an extremely impactful one for Djokovic. The Serb has been untethered since parting ways with Becker last December, and when he cut the line on the rest of his team—including legendary Marian Vajda, who was his rock for over a decade—it was only natural that he continued to drift. Agassi comes in at a time when Djokovic is badly in need of a sage in his life.
With Agassi, a family man who has run the gamut from untapped, underachieving talent to internationally celebrated juggernaut and back again, Djokovic will get the chance to tap a deep, analytical thinker that can certainly relate with the mental malaise that currently plagues the World No.2. If it is meaning that Djokovic is searching for, Agassi will certainly prove inspirational. The eight-time major champion has parlayed his lucrative tennis career into a soul-quenching philanthropic pursuit. He’s a man that struggled throughout his career to find reasons to keep pushing for greatness. At times he failed, at others he rose from the ashes and reinvented himself as an even bigger force on tour.
For Djokovic, tennis needs to be about something more than simply winning titles and claiming prize money. He’s on a spiritual quest and his biggest problem in 2017 is that he has not found a way to marry his spirituality with his tenacity. At times he seems downright confused on a tennis court, or even worse—embarrassed by his competitive nature. It’s been clear that he needs a guiding voice all season, and in Agassi, he may have found that magic ingredient: a mentor that can make him feel comfortable in his own skin again.
Djokovic’s game doesn’t lack tactically or technically in any way. Sure, he could benefit from a little more clarity and some prescient advanced scouting, but the biggest adjustment that the 12-time major champion needs to make is in his heart. He simply needs the fire in his belly to be stoked again.
Djokovic’s initial vision quest might have been a natural byproduct of chasing Federer and Nadal for all those years. Never satisfied, always craving, he built a game and a mindset so invincible that it took him well beyond his rivals and to a place where neither of them had ever gone. Just last year at this time he was winning his fourth consecutive major at Paris, capping an achievement that neither Federer nor Nadal had ever achieved.
But the fire flickered in the wind and eventually went out.
With Agassi in his camp it should start to burn again. The mere fact that Djokovic is making this decision hints at his own desire to reach the pinnacle of tennis again. And Agassi wouldn’t be there if he didn’t see it as a tremendous opportunity to help him do just that.
Djokovic is like Apple stock after a 15 percent selloff due to a liquidity crisis. There is a buying opportunity here. At No.2 in the world, there’s still a long way to fall, but the decision to bring Andre Agassi into the fold likely means that Djokovic is headed back to the top of tennis.