Tennis: Masterly form dazzles Tomic

Novak Djokovic makes a return to Bernard Tomic. Photo / AP

Bernard Tomic had to be congratulated on his candour. The Australian, as if dazed by his schooling at the hands of Novak Djokovic, was not about to put any platitudinous spin on the 6-3 6-3 6-3 scoreline in the defending champion's favour.

"The score looked a lot closer than it was," he said. "I can't even describe it in words. Too good, too good."

Djokovic turned this match into an exclamation point upon his supremacy as world No1, unloading 15 aces and keeping Tomic so far behind the baseline he might have been in a different postal district.

Once he was finished with these three sets of symmetrical excellence, he even discharged his role as diplomat to perfection, staying so long for his autographs session he ended up signing one man's artificial leg.

"That's probably the first time I have signed a prosthetic limb," said Djokovic, whose penchant for eating the Centre Court grass has shown his appetite for the bizarre. "I hope my signature will bring him some luck and make him feel good."

He need not have worried. It is likely the gentleman headed home as gratified as the other 20,000 souls to have been in the presence of such greatness. For if the top seed was seeking to send reminders to his rivals of his alpha-male qualities, this was a masterclass, full of the cute angles and destructive groundstrokes that have cemented his dominance.

Tomic, a mercurial young man furnished with extravagant talent but no apparent idea of how to defend against an opponent of this calibre, has often been touted as a future top-five player. That ambition looked as remote as ever, though, in light of his dismantling by Djokovic. He had stretched the Serb to four memorable sets in the Wimbledon quarter-finals but there was never any danger of a repeat as he grew increasingly bewildered by the bombardment unleashed in his direction.

"It shows you why he's the best," Tomic reflected. " Novak just demonstrates what you can do on the court. I would say that I played the power game, that I served well, but I don't yet have the speed, anticipation or balance. Then again, nobody has it like him."

Djokovic, having purged the anguish of a French Open final defeat that cost him the opportunity of a calendar grand slam, has rarely appeared more content with a performance. In nine sets at Wimbledon, he has swept through all nine, not shipping more than four games in any. He ascribed such poise to the influence of coach Boris Becker, who has imparted the type of uncompromising mindset that propelled him to back-to-back titles at the All England Club aged just 18.

"It's important to have the right chemistry," Djokovic said of the partnership with Becker, which began early last year. "For Boris and I, it took some time. I knew it would take a while for us to get on the same kind of frequency, the same thinking, to start making big results."

That time has emphatically arrived. Djokovic's almost insurmountable form in 2015, with a mere three defeats all season — one of them a paper-thin loss to Stanislas Wawrinka at Roland Garros — has validated the wisdom of adding Becker to his team.

Djokovic plays the huge-serving South African Kevin Anderson on Monday night (NZT) but one adversary who could yet derail the procession is Wawrinka.

The Swiss overwhelmed Spain's Fernando Verdasco 6-4 6-3 6-4 yesterday and has acknowledged he is the one player who Djokovic actively dislikes facing.

Just as in Paris, theirs could yet be the duel that decides the title.