If this story was being written three weeks before the end of the ATP season, it would read very differently. It would be about a talented American treading water as the world No.22, having opened with a pair of titles and a string of other good wins before, in some respects, starting to lose his way.
Jack Sock’s self-described “hot” start to 2017 that stretched from Auckland and Delray Beach through to Miami had been plunged into a deep freeze by the time he arrived at the Paris Masters in late October. His post-Australian Grand Slam record was dismal, his grass court swing disrupted by a knee injury, what had seemed to be new-found clarity and focus clouded by frustration. Holidays could not come quickly enough.
The match that changed everything was Sock’s first at Bercy. At 1-5 down in the third set against Kyle Edmund, he was mentally packing his bags for the next flight home to Kansas. Instead, by the end of the week, the 25-year-old was carrying his first ATP 1000 singles title and a debut top 10 ranking aboard the Eurostar bound for the ATP Finals in London.
There, the last man into the elite field of eight defeated Marin Cilic and Alexander Zverev in the group stage to reach the semis, where he lost in three sets to eventual champion Grigor Dimitrov. When that vacation belatedly began and the golf clubs were dusted off, Sock was at a career-high No.8, despite a difficult and relatively fruitless stretch mid-year.
“After (March) I put a lot of pressure on myself, had a lot of expectations to keep that up every single week,’’ Sock explained at the O2. “We're all human. That's probably not going to happen unless your name is Roger or some of those guys. You're going to lose some matches, you're going to have some bad weeks, for sure. It's part of sport. I think I let that get me down a lot through the year. So mentally I wasn't in the place that I was at the beginning of the year.’’
Then came Paris. Sock called his coach back in the States, Jay Berger. “We kind of said, ‘screw it, take that pressure off yourself, go have fun on court again’. I enjoyed being on the court. With the pressure I was putting on myself, I wasn't having the fun times that I had at the beginning of the year and in the past.’’
Fun becomes him. Sock described his London approach in part as “hitting some stupid shots that work sometimes” and his general philosophy as “play big, play free”. His is a relentlessly aggressive game built around that massive topspin forehand and big serve, great wheels and a volleying prowess reflected in a fine doubles record despite an attitude he describes as playing “for fun with some friends when I want to’’. The largest of his eight career doubles titles came in 2014, when Sock shared the Wimbledon title with Vasek Pospisil.
He is fond of a laugh and a joke, including in the media room, where sessions after losses can nevertheless can be rather caustic affairs. Shades, indeed, of another famous Nebraska native, Andy Roddick, who in 2007 was the previous American man to reach the last four at the year-end championships. By getting there, following on from that transformative charge through an admittedly depleted field in Paris, Sock said he felt, above all, a new sense of “reassurance”. He has long believed he could play consistently at the top level, and so, at both ends of 2017, he did.
“I think if I do the right things and I play the right tennis, I can give myself a chance to play on the weekend of any tournament,’’ Sock said. “I think I've showed that more this year. Obviously there's a rough patch in the middle with some things going on.
“I'm 25 years old. I'm not the new kid on the block any more. It's kind of my time, the next however-many years. Yeah, I'm just trying to do what I can.’’