WIMBLEDON, England — Novak Djokovic’s choppy year 2022 found its way to an elegant pinnacle on Sunday, when he and his otherworldly shotmaking brought about the resumption of his long foray into the humongous numbers.
His 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) win over the volatile Nick Kyrgios hauled Djokovic up to seven Wimbledon men’s singles titles, pulling him even with Pete Sampras and William Renshaw and leaving him lurking one behind Roger Federer. It also provided a fourth straight Wimbledon title and 21st Grand Slam singles title, within one of Rafael Nadal and one ahead of Federer, the maestro Djokovic once trailed by 16-1.
It also served as a way to beat what seems an imposing deadline in 2022. With the United States not allowing noncitizen, nonresident internationals to enter the country without a coronavirus vaccine, and with Djokovic remaining firmly unvaccinated, it appears he will miss his chance to grow his the numbers further when the U.S. Open convenes in late August. In an oddity, Wimbledon may have been his last-chance saloon for this calendar year.
He won it by winning as he often does: by solving an opponent until the solving starts to look like dismantling. He won it by gaining a homing read on Kyrgios’s booming serve, as befits a 35-year-old player long deemed the best-ever returner of serve. He won it with breaks at 2-1 ahead in the second set and 4-4 in the third, the latter from 40-love down in the place the match really tilted. And he won it by maintaining his deeply experienced mind as ever while Kyrgios’s noted wiring blew sparks, as when he yammered on and on with his team in the Friends Box and with the chair umpire, including after a sole fan’s yelp disturbed him before a second serve in the third set.
It highlighted a year that began in a wacky scenario in which Djokovic traveled to Australia with permission for the Australian Open, stayed 11 days at practice and in court, then underwent deportation as the tournament began. Nadal won that tournament, at an event Djokovic has won nine times, to inch ahead of Djokovic and Federer 21-20 in Grand Slams, meaning the vaccination impasse between health authorities and Djokovic might have altered the history of the sport.
It took a while for Djokovic to recover emotionally from that, he said here, but he righted himself by the time he won the esteemed clay tournament in Rome and surged through four rounds of the French Open. Then he fell suddenly to Nadal in four sets in a premature quarterfinal, one year after solving Nadal in four sets at the same tournament in a breakthrough semifinal.