The last stand from Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic screaming in exasperation during the French Open 2013 semi-final against Rafael Nadal

At that precise moment was when Djokovic’s season took a downswing and began Nadal’s Indian summer.

Nadal lapped up almost every single tournament from then on winning the two Masters events on clay at Madrid and Rome and followed it up with the French Open crown, in the process becoming the first player to win a Grand Slam eight times.

Steve ‘the Shark’ Darcis landed Nadal in troubled waters at Wimbledon dumping him out in the first round for the first time. That would prove to be a minor blip though as Nadal returned to the North American hardcourts in stunning form winning both of the Masters events before the US Open at Montreal and Cincinnati and cemented his status as the player of the season by claiming his second US Open crown defeating Djokovic in four sets.

If the spotlight wasn’t on Nadal already, his remarkable 10 tournament wins this year certainly shifted it to the Spaniard completely, save a brief three-week period in July where Andy Murray mania ran riot (majorly gripping the British Isles). Hysteria ensued to the extent that knighthood for Murray had become a trending topic.

The world number 1 (Djokovic) in all this time had been forced into a corner, left to lick his wounds; wounds that had been inflicted by Nadal and Murray.

He lost to the eventual winner at all the three Slams that eluded his grasp. Now normally, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing; if anything it would show Djokovic to be second only to the champion. But it was not so much the loss, as much as the manner of some of the losses.

At the French, he stood on the verge of what would have been a historic triumph when he led, a break-up, against Nadal in the fifth set of their semi-final. Nadal upped his game and threw everything he had at Djokovic in a bid to turn it around and it worked. But it was uncharacteristic of Djokovic to cave in suddenly from such a position.

At Wimbledon, he lost in straight sets, but in all three of them he was up a break before surrendering his advantage to Murray. At Montreal he was beaten again by Nadal, in a match where he started off making a ton of unforced errors that cost him the first set. At the US Open, he looked to have turned the tide after winning the second set and was in dominant form in the early stages of the third.

A familiar tale ensued after that – Nadal rose while Djokovic sank.