james lawton
LONDON, 26 JUNE: Maybe there was no easy way to re-occupy all that astonishing terrain left empty by the disappearance of Rafa Nadal but, if you had to pick a man for the job, who better than Novak Djokovic?
It is no disrespect to the venerable icon Roger Federer or the increasingly authentic challenger Andy Murray to say that he brought a unique aura to the Centre Court yesterday.
Rafa has to re-make himself once again after the shock of his defeat by the obscure Belgian Steve Darcis. Federer once more has to ransack the last of his resources in pursuit of his 18th Grand Slam title. Murray, for all the progress that now includes the US Open title and an Olympic gold medal, still has only one foot among the men who have shaped arguably the most compelling era the game has known.
It meant that there were moments in the bright sunshine yesterday when it was impossible not to believe that Djokovic suddenly held the whole of the game in the palm of one witheringly powerful hand.
Aged 26, the man from Serbia is neither advancing nor regressing. He is not thrusting for a new position, not fighting a slide. He simply inhabits the prime of his competitive life, this owner of six Grand Slam titles — it would have been seven and a full set if Nadal had not produced his astounding comeback in Paris a few weeks ago — and yesterday we saw precisely the force of both his current mood and a nature which has been ferocious since the cradle. The day after Nadal fell, Djokovic near faultlessly eased himself back on to the Centre Court grass and afterwards he was quick to point out that the man he had beaten, the 29-year-old German Florian Mayer, could not be seen as just another piece of first round fodder routinely fed to the marquee names who command the huge television audiences in the second week of the great tournament.
Mayer, a Bavarian from the town of Bayreuth which famously celebrates the thunderous music of Richard Wanger, has certainly played a few boisterous tunes on his racket. He has twice made it to the Wimbledon quarter-finals, last year against Djokovic. He is currently ranked 34th in the world after reaching a career high of 18th.
One of the claims Mayer brought to the Centre Court was ownership of an elaborately deceitful drop shot and a startling back-lift on both the fore and backhand.
He was not a man to discount, Djokovic suggested, as you fought to make yourself at home again on the green grass of SW19. You do not, after all, stumble your way to career winnings of more than $4m. Mayer was a man to respect and, more pertinently, to destroy. This Djokovic did with accelerating confidence over one hour and 56 minutes, winning eventually as a champion might toy with an utterly outmatched opponent. The score was 6-3, 7-5, 6-4, but the details do not begin to describe how it was when Djokovic decided it was time to move his game on to another dimension.  the independent