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  • Sam BordenESPN Senior Author

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      Sam Borden is a senior author for ESPN.com.

NOVAK DJOKOVIC IS looking for something.

Information technology is Orthodox Easter Sun in Belgrade. Djokovic is playing the terminal of the Serbia Open, a crowd of eight,000-plus bellowing behind him. Downward one set to Andrey Rublev of Russia, he rallies dorsum in the 2d to force a tiebreak.

Only late in the prepare, Djokovic begins to wilt. After ane betoken, he slips and falls, lying on his dorsum. He rises slowly, gingerly, the red dirt running rivulets down his sweat-soaked shirt. He wipes his eyes, blinking over and over. He wraps his head in a white towel filled with water ice.

Djokovic manages to win the tiebreak to even the friction match, simply to have a medical timeout and disappear inside the tennis middle's chief building.

The fans murmur every bit the minutes pass and Djokovic doesn't reappear. They have come to praise him. They take come up to raise him. They have come to meet him, their son, regarded by many equally the most dominant player of all time. There is no controversy with Djokovic here; there is only the promise -- the expectation -- that he volition before long reenter the world'due south collective consciousness for something more valiant than beingness at the heart of perhaps the most famous displacement in lawn tennis history.

The Serbia Open up is a small result with a small handbag in a relatively small urban center. And Djokovic has said, very kindly, that Paris -- the French Open, which begins Sunday at Roland Garros -- is his professional focus. As far as history is concerned, Djokovic's next chapter will be written there.

Only it begins here, in Belgrade, just as his commencement lawn tennis affiliate did. And information technology isn't supposed to begin like this.

Inside the locker room, Djokovic is searching. Struggling. Wondering. He doesn't empathize why he tin't play the way he wants. Why he can't feel the style he wants. He had COVID for a second fourth dimension in Dec. Another illness terminal month. And because of the fallout from the Australian Open up and the pandemic restrictions elsewhere, he hasn't played anything close to a full schedule. A yr ago, he arrived at the French Open having played 64 sets of tournament tennis; this year, he'due south played 38.

"I don't know why this is happening," he says at one indicate.

If he were anywhere else, he would probably retire the friction match. He would pull out and go on to his next tournament. He would keep rolling toward Paris, where the opportunity to match Rafael Nadal's Thou Slam full of 21 trophies -- and re-stake his claim as the greatest men's singles thespian of all fourth dimension -- awaits. Where the world will plow its eyes toward him for the showtime time since January and wonder what has happened to him since he was removed from Melbourne without ever playing a match.

But he can't quit. This is Serbia. These are his people. His blood brother is the tournament director. The match is being played at the Novak Tennis Center. The Wi-Fi countersign in this edifice where he'south languishing is "NOLE," his childhood nickname.

So he stands up. He sips some room-temperature water. He slips on a dry out shirt. He pushes through the door.

When he emerges on court, the stadium shakes every bit if he has already won.

Before IN THE WEEK, 2 days earlier his first match, Djokovic practices with Dominic Thiem, a spry Austrian. A oversupply of off-duty brawl boys, VIPs and assorted hangers-on quickly forms to watch their beloved Nole. A chef meanders out from the tennis guild'southward kitchen to grab a peek, still wearing her alpine white toque.

Djokovic laughs and bounces around the court, but his game is inclement. Afterward he nets another forehand, a friend watching nearby says, "It has been like this since..." and trails off, shrugging.

Since Commonwealth of australia, he means to say.

Australia, of course, is where things changed for Djokovic. It is where the Djokovic conundrum, the Djokovic trouble, the Djokovic question that tennis has grappled with for years went mainstream. That is, what exactly are we supposed to make of this immensely talented, incredibly enigmatic disruptor?

Suddenly, it wasn't only nigh Djokovic existence different (or even ameliorate) than Roger Federer or Nadal. It wasn't near Grand Slam trophies. It wasn't about on-courtroom histrionics or quirky diets or even the gap between how Djokovic wants to be received and how he (often) is.

No, of a sudden it was about a tennis histrion from Serbia becoming a lightning rod during a pandemic that has frightened and ideologically divided an entire planet.

Djokovic, who is unvaccinated against COVID-19, traveled to Melbourne in Jan having received an invitation to enter the country via an exemption provided by the land government so he could play the Australian Open up. But a social media uprising led the Australian federal regime to push for his visa to be canceled.

What followed was an ugly, emotionally charged global plebiscite on governmental COVID policies at the frequently-explosive intersection between personal liberty and personal responsibility.

Djokovic was detained for days. And then deported. Then isolated, both symbolically and literally, as he voluntarily sat out several U.S. tournaments because he was not allowed to travel as an unvaccinated foreigner. He has 20 Thou Slam singles titles, only Djokovic may never have been more famous than he was in those moments where he couldn't hit a ball.

Prominent anti-vax groups claimed him as a hero and a freedom fighter, while others painted him every bit everything that was wrong with the pandemic.

"Everyone, for the past two years, has been looking for someone to blame for the pandemic, and what happened in Australia prepare Novak upwardly to be that," Viktor Troicki, a retired Serbian pro and one of Djokovic'south close friends, tells me one afternoon in Belgrade. "It wasn't fair to him at all."

Fair or non, it weighed on Djokovic. Drastic to find a new beginning in a familiar place, he came dwelling house. To the place where he is revered. To the identify where he is known.

On this particular Monday, in a chilly, blustery wind, he hits with Thiem. He does speed work. He poses for a few photos. He goes to the media tent for his get-go news conference of the calendar week.

After a slew of average questions nearly his preparation, one of the reporters asks what Djokovic idea about as he fell asleep the night before. Djokovic stares at her for a second, hesitating. What was he thinking about?

What wasn't he?

Finally, he says that he actually thought a lot about making sure his fidgeting and squirming wouldn't injure his dog, who was curled upwards next to him in bed.

He was tossing and turning, Djokovic says, considering lately, "I have been having some trouble sleeping."

ON Wed, A few hours before his opening match in Belgrade, Djokovic practices with Karen Khachanov, a tall, top-ranked Russian player.

Djokovic, momentarily left without any balls to serve himself, moves to a return position. He split-steps as Khachanov pumps his racket, then steps in with his left foot and cracks a forehand, blasting a return that skids off the line in the corner to Khachanov'south left, a winner against anyone. Khachanov serves another and Djokovic does the same thing, only this time with a backhand to the opposite corner, the brawl skidding off the line there. Khachanov serves again and Djokovic sends it back to the first corner. One more, and it whizzes back to the corner to Khachanov's right.

As a boy, one of Djokovic's coaches, Bogdan Obradovic, taught him musical rhythms -- "I brought my guitar to the court," Obradovic says -- because understanding the one-two of a player stepping into the courtroom with his foot then hitting the brawl with his racket was what separated the average returners from the aristocracy. Years later, Djokovic'south execution of that principle -- and the simplicity with which he succeeds -- is staggering. Fifty-fifty Khachanov stares, only for a second, every bit if he'd momentarily forgotten just how talented Djokovic is.

It has long been impossible for u.s. to take our optics off Djokovic because he carries himself in a manner that hints at an even greater spectacle to come. Djokovic grew up hit balls not far from the tournament site in Belgrade, and his first coach, Jelena Gencic, told his parents he was a "golden child" almost immediately afterwards she began working with him. Djokovic was six. When he would win tournaments on weekends while in grade school, he frequently received bags of candy he'd bring to school on Mondays to share with his friends.

"Information technology was like, every single Mon," one of his childhood friends, Bojan Petronic, tells me. "We expected it. If there was literally one Monday where he didn't have it, we'd be like, 'No! Y'all can't lose! Where is our processed?' And he would apologize."

At that historic period, Djokovic preferred soccer to tennis, simply his begetter, Srdjan, prohibited him from playing soccer with his friends on the physical court behind his granddaddy'due south apartment because Srdjan was worried Djokovic would exist injured (Petronic: "We sometimes played anyway"). As Djokovic got older, Srdjan took out loans to bankroll his son's tennis career, essentially betting his unabridged family's livelihood on his son's ability.

Even with all that pressure, conviction was never a problem for Djokovic. Gebhard Gritsch, who spent nine years as Djokovic'south fitness charabanc, told me that in the very get-go chat they had, Djokovic looked at him and said, "The situation is very elementary: I believe someone out there has decided I'thou supposed to go a lawn tennis thespian and I'k supposed to exist the No. one player in the world. Then, I need you to help me with that."

With a record 370 weeks as the No. 1 thespian in the world, Djokovic's dominance has been virtually-total. And yet despite his indelible success -- despite the fact he has somehow met and surpassed all the hopes anyone could have peradventure had for him -- there has always been, and continues to be, a feeling effectually Djokovic that something is missing. That there is still a place he cannot accomplish.

Patrick McEnroe, the analyst and old U.South. Davis Cup helm, thinks oft of Djokovic at the United states Open, a tournament where for years the fans often booed or whistled at him. When the New York fans finally cheered for him in the championship match concluding year, which he ultimately lost, Djokovic broke downward in tears late in the final set, proverb afterwards that "even though I accept non won the match, my heart is filled with joy."

The applause was fleeting -- he was going for a historic agenda-year M Slam against Daniil Medvedev, an equally unpopular Russian player -- merely it was a taste of what Djokovic has craved.

"He was and is merely so much freaking better than everyone else," McEnroe says, "but even with all those wins, he isn't loved in the way that he wants."

McEnroe pauses, and then adds: "I think sometimes it's almost like he'south trying likewise difficult with the public. Like he'll try annihilation to chase this thing that he's never quite been able to get."

TO UNDERSTAND WHO Djokovic is at present -- likewise every bit who he wants to be -- it is helpful to understand where he came from. And by almost any mensurate, the turning point in his career came in January 2010, when Dr. Igor Cetojevic, a Bosnian Serb living in Cyprus who doesn't like tennis at all, happened to see Djokovic'south Australian Open up friction match against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Djokovic was having a physical breakdown, something that happened to him and so oft back then that Andy Roddick once joked Djokovic might exist "the most mettlesome guy of all time" for all the alleged injuries he battled through. Watching Djokovic struggle to breathe that twenty-four hours, Cetojevic, a medical doctor and acupuncturist whose website describes him as an good in health concepts that are "but get-go to come to light" in Western medicine, bristled when he heard the television announcers speculate that Djokovic might exist suffering from asthma.

"I knew right away it wasn't asthma," he tells me.

Cetojevic'south wife -- who is a tennis fan -- suggested her husband try to aid a fellow Serb. Through a mutual connectedness, Cetojevic arranged to encounter Djokovic in Croatia that summer and told him that he believed Djokovic'due south concrete struggles were rooted in a nutrient allergy.

To prove his point, he asked Djokovic to put one hand on his stomach and hold the other hand out in front end of him, palm up. "Resist as I try to push button your paw downwards," he instructed. Djokovic easily kept Cetojevic from moving his manus much at all. Then Cetojevic gave Djokovic a piece of staff of life and told him to hold it confronting his breadbasket as he put his other hand out. Cetojevic easily pushed Djokovic's hand downwardly. "He was clearly weaker," Cetojevic says now. "It showed that his body was resisting the wheat."

Cetojevic, who describes Djokovic every bit "a beautiful open up mind," knew zero about athletes or tennis. But Djokovic was moved by his theories and trusted him. He underwent further testing, revamped his diet to eliminate gluten and other sensitivities and embraced many of Cetojevic's philosophies. His performances seemed to propose the changes worked. The next year, Djokovic had one of the greatest seasons in men'south tennis, winning three of the four M Slams.

In his book, "Serve to Win," Djokovic praises Cetojevic frequently, writing that "much of what Dr. Igor Cetojevic told me ... will strike you as truly unbelievable. But then again, and so will the results."

Cetojevic's fingerprints are all the same all over Djokovic'south methodologies. The tepid water, for example (because common cold h2o sits in your belly). The strictly vegan diet (despite Djokovic's parents having owned a pizza restaurant). A belief in telepathy and telekinesis. A confidence that positive thinking can do nearly anything, including change the toxicity of nutrient and drink. "I've seen people ... that, through that energetical transformation, through the ability of prayer, through the power of gratitude, they manage to turn the nigh toxic food or most polluted water, into the most healing water," Djokovic said during an Instagram Live in 2020.

He added, "Because water reacts and scientists have proven that -- that molecules in the water react to our emotions."

If nothing else, Djokovic'southward candor about his beliefs provides something of a roadmap for how he views Western medicine and science (he told The Telegraph that he felt guilty for getting elbow surgery in 2022 because he believes that "our bodies are self-healing mechanisms.")

Cartoon a line between that sort of thinking and how Djokovic approached COVID isn't difficult. And Cetojevic, while declining to reveal the caste to which he counseled Djokovic regarding the COVID vaccine, went as far as likening Djokovic during the pandemic to Martin Luther King Jr. during the ceremonious rights move.

"He is seeing the real film when everyone else is just going along with what they're being told most these 'experimental' vaccines," Cetojevic says, dismissing the numerous tests and studies on vaccine efficacy as "exaggeration."

In a country where the vaccination rate is less than 50% and there is anti-vax graffiti and signage seemingly everywhere, Cetojevic is non alone among Serbs in seeing Djokovic's refusal to be vaccinated equally noble.

When Djokovic was beingness detained in Commonwealth of australia, Cetojevic sent him a text message telling him he was doing the right thing despite being labeled "a bad guy." "How many people take been in jail for what they believe?" Cetojevic says he wrote to Djokovic. "I told him, 'Yous are a light for man rights.'"

MIDWAY THROUGH DJOKOVIC'S match on Thursday in Belgrade, his opponent, Miomir Kecmanovic, steps within the baseline and pounds a weak second serve from Djokovic for a clean winner. It is embarrassingly easy for Kecmanovic, so much so that Djokovic -- downwardly a set once more -- erupts in anger, dandy a ball confronting the back wall of the stadium.

The fans barely react. These outbursts, the flashes of anger, are a significant part of the Djokovic feel.

The nadir came in 2020, when Djokovic blasted a ball back toward the wall behind him after losing a game merely to encounter it striking a lineswoman in the throat. Information technology didn't appear as though Djokovic hit her on purpose, but he was tossed out of the US Open -- a humiliating feel for the earth No. i, besides as the entire sport.

It also served every bit easy evidence for the long-running theory that while Djokovic'southward views on subjects like the emotional properties of water molecules may play some role in his public image being divisive, the more significant reason he's often been cast as tennis'southward interloper is simpler: his temper.

"You know, you can put together a pretty significant highlight reel of some pretty average behavior from Novak in matches," his quondam analytics coach, Craig O'Shannessy, tells me. "He'south apparently not the just one that does that. Just when you're at his place in the game, information technology's different."

It's different because Djokovic has e'er wanted more merely on-courtroom success. He has always wanted to exist seen like Federer or Nadal, always wanted to be the human beloved in all cities. He doesn't keep it a secret, either. As recently as concluding year, Djokovic said, a scrap forlornly, that he believes he plays "ninety% of my matches, if not more that, against the opponent merely against the stadium also."

Djokovic would like to believe that simply beating Federer and Nadal often enough should bring him that admiration, and there is no doubt he has spent much of his career focusing on his 2 main rivals. When he brought O'Shannessy onboard, he made a signal of saying that O'Shannessy had 3 main tasks: analyze Djokovic'south game, set daily scouting reports on opponents and do anything he could to aid with "a couple of guys that I desire to study actually well.

"We desire to make certain that we are right on top of these guys," Djokovic told O'Shannessy. There was no need to name them.

But being correct on summit of those guys wasn't enough. That sense of esteem, of reverence from all corners, still eludes him. Sometimes, Djokovic will even play a trick on himself mentally -- "When the crowd is chanting 'Roger,' I hear 'Novak,'" he said a few summers ago.

Some close to Djokovic believe there is a larger phenomenon at work. Tennis is a largely rich and traditional sport with a Western-based media coverage footprint that has historically skewed more favorably towards players from western Europe, Australia and the United states of america. Federer, with his coolly Swiss demeanor, or Nadal, with his Castilian inventiveness and flair, fit the long-held mold.

Djokovic does non. He is from the onetime Yugoslavia. He lashes out. His parents are bouncy and outspoken. To pick two incidents, his female parent told an Australian paper that "the male monarch is dead" after her son shell Federer in 2008, while his father said in 2013 that Federer was a tremendous player but that "as a homo, he's the opposite."

Those outbursts are emblematic of a sentiment among many from the Balkan region that their athletes are ignored, overlooked or stereotyped. "He was used to the idea that at the US Open, 95% of the people volition be against him," Gritsch, the one-time trainer, says. "He has plenty of fans -- they just aren't necessarily all the well-situated Westerners. And Novak wants to be loved by anybody."

He isn't alone in that. One afternoon, while I'thou in Belgrade, I meet upwards with Darko Milicic, the sometime NBA actor who was picked 2d in the 2003 NBA draft. Like Djokovic, Milicic wanted desperately to be liked by American fans and reporters, and so while preparing to come to the U.S., he made up a story about how he'd grown upwardly idolizing Kevin Garnett.

Information technology made sense -- Garnett was a big man, only similar Milicic -- just it was a consummate fabrication. Milicic had barely watched Garnett play at all. He merely knew that people would presume he'd spent his babyhood worshiping some American NBA star he saw on TV, so he figured if he told them what they wanted to hear -- as he did in many interviews -- it might aid him fit in.

Now 36 and secure in his post-basketball life as an apple farmer, Milicic has seen similar things from Djokovic, including the phase early in his career when Djokovic gained notoriety for doing exaggerated on-court impressions of other players. Milicic grimaced as he saw Djokovic lean into the thought that he was the funnyman, the Djoker on tour. It was like he had a party play tricks to evidence off.

Information technology wasn't authentic, Milicic says. And similar McEnroe, Milicic says he sensed Djokovic was "trying too hard" to ingratiate himself, to force himself to exist seen differently than he actually was. Sometimes, he still feels that manner. "If they're non going to like you, they're non going to similar you lot," Milicic says. "Believe me, I know -- I really know. Yous tin can't force it."

A few days later, I mention my conversation with Milicic to Troicki, the erstwhile role player who has known Djokovic since they were picayune. Troicki nods when I explain Milicic'due south thinking, and then I ask him: Afterward all the success Djokovic has had, why does he even so care how people run into him? Why is he however trying so hard? Troicki shakes his caput.

"I don't know," he says. "Information technology shouldn't matter to him. But it does."

WITHIN 20 MINUTES of completing his win over Khachanov in the Serbia Open up semifinal on Saturday, Djokovic is dorsum on the practice court. This time he hits with his son and the Owaki brothers, a pair of young Japanese social media celebrities. When the boys smack their groundstrokes at him, Djokovic pantomimes the grunts he makes in real matches and lobs the assurance back.

At one indicate, Djokovic puts downward his dissonance and begins chasing his girl, Tara, waving his arms similar a monster. When he catches her, he snatches her upward into the air and holds her tightly. The lord's day is out. Tara giggles. Information technology is the happiest Djokovic looks all calendar week.

At his news conference a lilliputian subsequently, Djokovic is asked about Wimbledon officials' decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players from the tournament because of Russia'southward invasion of Ukraine -- and his smile quickly melts away.

He is against the war, he says. But he is too against excluding players based on their nationality, to punish someone for just beingness from somewhere.

"I know very well what sanctions mean," he says softly. "I know how it is when you lot're regarded in the world as an outcast, when you come from a land that has been portrayed in a bad style. I've been victim to that for many years."

His confront is drawn. As much equally Djokovic presents himself every bit a global citizen, his connectedness to Serbia is deep-rooted, layered into the textile of his life like the stitching on a seam. It colors the manner he sees the earth, the mode he sees himself. The conflicts of the Balkans are impossibly complex, simply the trauma of growing upward as Djokovic did -- "a child of war," equally he says -- is brutally simple.

To this day, Djokovic still finds himself jolted past sudden loud noises, an emotional scab seeded decades ago. For his 12th birthday party, his family and friends celebrated at a local tennis social club. As Djokovic's parents led everyone in singing "Happy Birthday," the thundering sound of fighter jets overhead enveloped the area. U.S.-led NATO forces were continuing their bombing in an attempt to stop the Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milosevic's persecution and violence confronting Kosovo Albanians. Everyone, including the children, knew what those sounds meant. "Everyone went back in the bunkers," says Petronic, Djokovic's childhood friend. "It felt endless."

Those bombings in 1999 lasted 78 nights, and Djokovic spent many of those in the bunker beneath his grandfather's flat building in the Banjica neighborhood of Belgrade, south of the city's centre. On an off day during tournament calendar week, I get to Banjica, and the building's superintendent, who has lived there 40 years, agrees to take me down the cement steps and unlock the crimson steel door. He pulls information technology open and winces.

Within, the bunker smells musty, like moisture earth mixed with concrete. The ceiling is low. Plastic chairs are stacked on top of each other. A few one-time glass bottles of rakia, Serbian fruit brandy, boozer more than than 20 years ago, all the same lie in one corner. A die, maybe from a board game, sits on top of a wooden crossbeam. The superintendent points to a tiny plug dangling from the ceiling and explains that dorsum then a group of residents jury-rigged some blank lightbulbs and electric wires, with the whole thing powered by a stationary bike that they fix in an alcove. Each dark, he says, the men pedaled in turns so the lights would stay on.

Djokovic saw the men pedaling. Saw the drinking. Heard the explosions overhead, never certain when the side by side i was coming. Information technology was horrifying and desperately lamentable, just it was besides just life. In the mornings, when he and Gencic, his first lawn tennis autobus, went somewhere to practice, they sought out the impairment from the dark before, looking for scorched grass and craters earlier finding a tennis court nearby. It was safer near the harm, they thought, because information technology seemed less probable the military would flop the aforementioned area two days in a row.

"Nosotros don't think about it every day or annihilation anymore," Troicki says. "Simply it stays with you."

It is incommunicable to be in Belgrade and not feel that. Fifty-fifty now, there is freshly-painted graffiti saying "F--- NATO" on buildings everywhere. At that place is wariness about Western Europe and the U.s., a leeriness almost the intentions of the Due west. In the middle of the city, at that place is the old building of Radio Television of Serbia, which had its facade destroyed in 1999 by a flop that killed 16. The building has never been razed; instead, it stands there, its side laid open up, its crumbling walls and floors visible. It is a preserved memorial of the scars left backside.

As much as Djokovic strives to exist global, he will always come from this place. From this neighborhood. From this bunker.

Does it injure him to accept come from such pain? Does it brand it harder for him to be that thing he imagines the world wants him to be? It doesn't matter. He couldn't hibernate it fifty-fifty if he wanted to. But those who accept heard those planes and been in that bunker tin can understand how it changes someone. Only they can really know what growing upwardly like that does to someone's definition of survival.

On Sat, as he leaves the court after beating Khachanov to reach his hometown final, he tells the oversupply, "In that location is no amend feeling than being here in front end of you."

THE STORYBOOK ENDING, then, feels gear up. Djokovic returns to the court from his medical timeout in Sunday's final, fully embracing the dramatic pause, and it seems all but certain that he will consummate his comeback to claim the bays in front of his loyal and loving fans. When Rublev double-faults on the first point of the third set, the stadium heaves again and everyone leans in to watch Djokovic start rolling.

Only, he doesn't. Rublev holds his serve. Then breaks Djokovic's. And so flummoxes Djokovic with a wicked, twisting second serve in the third game that Djokovic flails at wildly. When Rublev breaks again to go up iv-0, Djokovic's face looks ashen. At five-0, some fans begin to file out and Djokovic doesn't bother to wait for quiet or calm; he serves as they're clomping down the tunnels, serves even as they flee and so they don't have to witness the terminal blow.

When it is over, and Djokovic has lost the concluding gear up half dozen-0, a tournament official asks Rublev to sign three tennis balls and striking them into the crowd. Rublev shakes his caput and looks embarrassed. "No one wants a ball from me," he tells the official. He points at Djokovic, who is hunched over in his chair. "They want him," he says.

The anniversary is awkward. Djokovic honors some erstwhile members of his team, including his longtime coach, Marian Vajda, and gives them gifts. Each human says a few words, and there is a sugariness to it all that is marred merely by the weirdness of Rublev continuing there holding the winner's trophy.

In many ways, the whole affair feels similar a transition, a reboot. Djokovic isn't the same as he was before Australia, because nobody is. He has changed. The way we see him has changed. And win or lose, he comes here -- he comes home -- to start over again.

When the ceremony finishes, he comes to the media tent for one more news conference. He says he is sorry the crowd had to encounter him get beaten and so badly. He says Rublev is a worthy champion. He says he is still searching, still looking for that thing that will make him feel the way he knows he can.

He cannot make anybody understand what he sees in the COVID vaccine or water molecules. He cannot curve the will of the people who watch him the same way he bends the will of the game itself.

He can but exist No. 1 for a 371st week. He tin can just raise some other bays. He can only win and win and win and win, imagining that someday, peradventure, that will feel like enough.

"Paris is the big goal," he says again. "And then, hopefully..."