How great must Novak Djokovic be to win appreciation?

Novak Djokovic has everything but the love. He has the game, the No.1 ranking, and now he has another Wimbledon title. But the deepest affection of the audience still belonged to the man he defeated in four stirring sets at the All England club, Roger Federer, and it’s time for that to change. Exactly how great does a player have to be before he wins full appreciation?
Maybe it was the constant juxtaposition of Djokovic’s force with the velvet strokes of the 33-year-old Federer that made the Centre Court crowd so heavily one-sided. But when Djokovic thundered a backhand return down the line to create match point and delivered an open-chested bellow, it was to merely polite applause. He then pressed Federer back with a series of heavy groundstrokes, and surged forward to pelt a last forehand winner into the far corner, for the 7-6 (7-1), 6-7 (12-10), 6-4, 6-3 victory. He roared, and threw open his arms in a strong man gesture, to a courteous ovation, no more.
“In the end when I finished the last point, I took out everything that was in me,” he said. “I still obviously don’t realize, you know, what kind of achievement it is.”
Let’s quantify that achievement. Djokovic has come along in an epoch in which he has to occupy competitive space not only with the much-adored No. 2 Federer, but also with Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray , which just might be the most elbow-jammed period of tennis history. Nevertheless the shorn-headed, elastic-limbed 28-year-old Serb won his ninth Grand Slam in overcoming Federer, and consider the all-time greats he passed in doing so. He has more Grand Slams now than Jimmy Connors, Fred Perry, Andre Agassi, Ken Rosewall or Ivan Lendl. “He is moving up,” Federer said. “Clearly he is making a big name for himself.”
Djokovic is liked, he is respected — but he’s not cherished the way the second-ranked Federer is, not even close. Djokovic understands that. Federer is five years his elder and has won 17 Grand Slam titles including seven Wimbledons, and he plays the game like a hang glider, with a lightness of movement that makes the audience swoon. He never puts a foot wrong on or off the court.
“Look, I expected that coming into the match,” Djokovic said of the crowd. “. . . He’s done all the right things to get that support. . . . I have to accept it. I have to work and earn the majority of the support maybe one day.”
Maybe one day Djokovic will hear the noise that Federer did as he fought off seven set points to claim a dazzler of a second set, a sound Federer described as “beautiful.” When Federer seized the set with a lunging, stabbing backhand volley into open court, the noise was like something out of a jet engine.

“You know, he’s not going to lose; I’m going to have to win if I want to lift that trophy,” Djokovic said.
What Djokovic did next was worthy of close examination — and admiration. How many players might have lapsed into an angry sulk, faced with two such opponents, Federer and the crowd? Instead Djokovic went into a place of determined calm.
“The quiet mind, the serene mind, wins the match,” he said. It was a remark typical of him, thoughtful and penetrating, further evidence that here is a man who deserves closer attention.
Federer came into the match playing brilliantly, having lost his serve just once in the past 90 games, but Djokovic broke him four times Sunday. Broke him in the third game of the next set, creating his chance with a twisting little forehand drop shot. Then split him wide open in the final set, with a series of strokes from his belt that pushed Federer almost to the backstop. There were no glory shots — no Federer-like swoops. Just a steady drumbeat of excellence from the quickest mover and best retriever in the game. Djokovic simply wrested the trophy away from arguably the best player of all time.
“It might look routine,” Federer said, “but I don’t believe that was the case.”
That statement summed things up perfectly. Djokovic makes the extraordinary look ordinary. It’s easy to know why Federer is great when you watch him. It’s not so easy to know why Djokovic is great, because he plays a game that’s less overtly tactile. But next time he is on court, try an experiment. Watch him, and only him. Don’t look at his opponent.
Watch how tensile his strokes are, the combination of strength and pliability that allows him to hit out from all directions, even when his haunches are almost on his heels. Earlier in the weekend, legendary coach Nick Bolletieri told the Independent that he considered Djokovic the perfect “machine” and compared him to an F-18.
This was Djokovic’s third Wimbledon title in five years and the second year in a row that he has beaten Federer for the trophy. He has now appeared in all three men’s Grand Slam finals in 2015, defeating Murray in the Australian Open final in February and losing to Stan Wawrinka in the French last month.
Do the math: If he can sustain this kind of play over the next five or six years, he could hold 20 majors. “I have hopefully many years in front of me,” he said. “I’m going to try to push my own limits and see how far I can really go with the titles,” he said.
It appears he has developed an appetite for winning them. Which was apparent after match point, when he threw a kiss at the sky and then bent down and plucked some grass from the court and put it in his mouth. It’s become a tradition for him here, to eat the court alive. “It tasted very, very good,” he said.