(July 4, 2011) With Novak Djokovic’s 6-4, 6-1, 1-6, 6-3 victory against Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, he's beaten the Spaniard in five finals this year.

Djokovic, who took the No. 1 ranking away from Nadal by advancing to the Wimbledon final, is only the second player who has beaten the Spaniard more than three times in a row.

Russia's Nikolay Davydenko is the first. He won his fourth match in a row against Nadal in Doha earlier this year.

James Blake, Tomas Berdych, Lleyton Hewitt and Gaston Gaudio have defeated Nadal three times in a row, but all of their wins came early in Nadal’s career, and with the exception of Gaudio, on hard courts.

Since he’s been at the top of the rankings, Nadal has dominated his fellow top 10 players. He has a 17-8 record against Roger Federer, 12-4 against Andy Murray and 6-2 against Robin Soderling.

Of the top 10, Djokovic is the closest to being even with Nadal, but he still has a 12-16 record against him. That record includes the Serb’s five wins from this year, indicating that until recently their match-up was just as one-sided as the others.

So why has Djokovic become a bad match-up for Nadal? His gluten-free diet and improved fitness level certainly factor into the equation, but there’s more to it.

Some of Djokovic’s strengths play well off of Nadal’s pattern of play, and the Serb has become much savvier at taking advantage of the openings the Spaniard gives him.

Below I will discuss what he brings to the table and why he’s been able to succeed against an opponent that has consistently beaten everyone else this year.

The Two-Handed Backhand

For anyone who plays against Nadal (assuming they’re right handed), it’s critical they can attack and defend off of that side because of the Spaniard’s ability to hit heavy left-handed crosscourt forehands to that side.

Fortunately for Djokovic, that shot has always been one of his main strengths. He is capable of hitting with great consistency and depth, as well as hitting precise down the line and angled cross court winners from seemingly defensive positions.

Nadal likes to build points by moving his opponents laterally until he gets a short ball. While that works against almost everyone else, Djokovic can run everything down and, particularly on the backhand, hit deep shots that Nadal can’t attack.

This happened numerous times in the Wimbledon final. Nadal would hit a shot to Djokovic’s backhand after having him on the run and then step inside the baseline, anticipating a short response. What he got instead was a ball at his feet, and although he still got the shot back it enabled Djokovic to turn the point around.

Another key element is the Serb’s ability to direct his crosscourt backhands wide enough to make Nadal scramble. In a neutral rally, he sets the shot up by hitting short-angled crosscourt forehands to Nadal’s backhand.

The idea is to tempt the Spaniard to hit down the line, giving Djokovic a chance to hit into the open court with the shot he excells with the most.

If Nadal is able to get that shot back and crosscourt, Djokovic can direct his next backhand down the line to apply even more pressure.

Even when Nadal runs around his backhand to hit a forehand and hits it to Djokovic’s backhand, he does himself no favors because he opens up the court to the Serb’s backhand.

This strategy wouldn’t work if Djokovic didn’t have the endurance, speed or consistency to keep up with Nadal. In the past, he’s fallen short of the mark on all three of those, but this year things have changed.

Fitness and Defense

It’s no secret Djokovic has been working hard on his fitness, and his new diet has enabled him to lose some weight. He’s even said that he feels faster around the court and it’s obvious he has the confidence in his fitness to go the distance with anyone.

Against Nadal, that helps him tremendously because he doesn’t feel like he has to go for a lot. This enables him to hit higher percentage shots and be more patient in setting up the point, as opposed to many of the other players who feel they have to play first-strike tennis against the World No. 2.

In the Wimbledon final, Djokovic hit 12 unforced errors, three fewer than Nadal. Not a huge difference, until you consider that until that match Nadal had far fewer errors than any of his previous opponents.

The Serb also had more winners than Nadal, although both still had less than 30.

That number is particularly low for the World No. 2 because he hit an average of 40 winners per match leading up to the final.

The difference illustrates Djokovic’s ability to return many of Nadal’s shots, which put the Spaniard under the same kind of pressure he puts on many of his opponents. That has translated into a number of errors in crucial moments in all of their matches this year, which ultimately gave Djokovic the edge he needed to win.

In the end, Djokovic’s ability to scramble and defend has made Nadal look, dare I say, human?

Mental Strength

Nadal is a relentless competitor, and he’s shown time after time that if you give him even a half chance, he’ll find a way to turn that into a win. Even down a sizable deficit against one of the game’s top players, Nadal seems to find a way to seize the momentum and come back to win.

That momentum switch seems to come from a break of serve, or a close service game he manages to hold. A good example of this is his semifinal match against Andy Murray. Murray won the first set 7-5 and missed a short forehand that would have given him two break points at 2-2, and Nadal found a way to hold and that momentum carried him to winning the next seven games.

Djokovic doesn’t let a potential opportunity distract him from the task at hand, and he doesn’t get discouraged.

An example of this is in their first final of the year at Indian Wells. Although he lost the first set, Djokovic played his way to a 4-2 lead in the second. Nadal played a series of outstanding points to break back, but instead of getting down on himself, Djokovic found a way to break back and serve out the set.

It seems as if Djokovic understands that Nadal is capable of hitting shots that no one else can, but the Serb brushes those points off and goes back to playing the match he knows he needs to.

Djokovic has improved all parts of his game, but the improvement of these parts of his game has made him more than a match for Nadal, as well as enabled him to lose only one match this year.

After the Wimbledon final, Nadal said “We can analyze that my game is not bothering him … We have to find how I can bother him. I did in the past. He's in the best moment of his career. I am in one of the best moments of my career, but still not enough for him.”