Shaken but still on top

A sweaty coup was attempted at the Rod Laver Arena yesterday, but a fighting man of rare resolve refused to budge. Dominic Thiem is surely the game's spirited future, but Novak Djokovic remains tennis' towering present. The Serb was attended to by a doctor, lost his concentration briefly and was shaken by the Austrian's aggression. If he was unsettled, then he was also in the end unbeaten. He is the game's best even when not at his best.

Once the Serb ripped his shirt when he won, now he merely tears up record books. Eight finals have now fetched him eight Australian Open trophies and later he said: "Definitely my favourite court (and) my favourite stadium in the world."

Yesterday he won 6-4, 4-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 and with his 17th Grand Slam title he is creeping up on Rafael Nadal's 19 and closing in on Roger Federer's 20. But both men left with something: the Serb with a familiar old trophy and Thiem with a new following.

Both men had adorned the game, during play and after it. Thiem, despite losing his third Slam final, spoke of the terrible fires Australia has endured and Djokovic talked of the death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter. On this day, with firefighters in the crowd, these two men brought the best things to sport - passion and perspective.

For one minute short of four hours this wasn't so much a match as an emotional, uneven and riveting baseline brawl. In the fifth set they were exchanging 28-shot conversations, proving again that as pure athletes they can stand with any sporting tribe.

Drop shots hissed over the net and both men explored the court like assertive geometricians. Thiem threw the harder punches but Djokovic found what champions incredibly do under pressure: another tenacious wind. Perhaps there are levels to his game even he is discovering.

Extraordinary athletes learn to lift even when they're uncomfortable, as if they have trained themselves to absorb any suffering. They are not beaten by adversity only provoked by it. The deeper into a match Djokovic goes, the more determined the set of his jaw.

This was the 13th straight Grand Slam title won by tennis' senior citizens and Thiem, a gentle, gracious man, had only deep respect for them. "These guys brought tennis to a complete new level," he said. "They also brought me probably to a much better level. I'm happy I can compete with these guys on the best level. I really hope also that I win my maiden slam when they're still around because it just counts more."

If the new generation is still to launch its revolution, then Thiem at least was a revelation. From the land of classical composers has arrived a man who offers us a mesmerising martial music.

Thiem is six years younger but had spent six hours longer than the Serb on court before the final and had run 6km more. When Djokovic won the first set, the Austrian's chances seemed to dim and later he said, "I've rarely felt physically that tired". Yet then, on the court, he put a very powerful spanner into Djokovic's finely tuned works.

Long ago, another Austrian named Franz Klammer, won Olympic downhill skiing gold by performing on the very edge that separates brilliance from madness. "My feelings were to give the race everything I had, without fear," he said then. It's roughly this place where Thiem arrived, embracing risk and ripping shots that peeled away paint from the lines.

The duo exchanged breaks in the second set, before drama unfolded. Djokovic double-faulted, twice took too long to serve and received first a warning and then a penalty. He was broken at 4-4, lost the second set, the next five games and the third set 6-2.

Thiem was solving the Djokovic puzzle, but only temporarily it turned out. The Australian crowd, drawn naturally to underdogs, hailed the young Austrian, depriving Djokovic again of what he rightfully believes he deserves: the unshakeable affection that Federer and Nadal routinely get.

But Djokovic started to scrap and the crowd responded to his grit. They desired a contest, he merely wanted the trophy. Thiem regretted a break point he let go early in the fourth set, but later said: "If you play a Grand Slam final against him, it's always going to be a match where very small details are deciding it."

People are drawn to art and invention, but it is control that is sports' hardest attribute, the ability - under pressure - to command the mind, manage the body and place the ball in precisely the right place.

This is what Djokovic seemed to find in the last set, a mastery of himself, his rival and the situation. He appeared a man who had transcended the game. Who had not just won the year's first Slam but also briefly attained tennis nirvana.