Novak Djokovic Is Ready For Another Fight

“A good fight.” “A battle.”

This, invariably, is Novak Djokovic, late in the evening, often well past midnight, when another day of work is finally done, when the arena has emptied and he sits in front of a microphone, his piercing eyes an odd combination of glazed and steely, and he tries to put into words what he has just endured.

To so many tennis players, their game exists as a kind of art. Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the world’s third-ranked player, talks about tennis as a form of self-expression.

To Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who is No. 2 in the world rankings, tennis is a chess match, requiring the ability to think several shots ahead, to control the center of the court as though it…