NOVAK DJOKOVIC carved a heart into the Roland Garros clay — and his name into sporting history.
The Serb, 29, finally ended his French Open final hoodoo, beating Andy Murray 3-6 6-1 6-2 6-4 to become only the eighth man ever to win all four Grand Slams.
The artistic celebration was not original. Djokovic had asked three-time winner Gustavo Kuerten permission to repeat his heart-shaped homage to the Parisian dust.
But Djokovic is now a one-off in the greatest era tennis has ever known.
Not even Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have ever held all four Slam titles at once.
Only the undisputed, undeniable, unstoppable world No1 has matched Rod Laver’s achievement of 1969 since the game went professional.
As a well-beaten Murray noted in a very gracious runners-up speech, to do it at any time — America’s Don Budge won six in a row in 1937-38 — is amazing.
To do it when fellow all-time greats Federer, Nadal and Murray are all around is incredible, even allowing for the fact the injured Swiss and Spaniard were not in a position to challenge him this time around.
And it says everything about Djokovic’s consistency and brilliance that it would be no surprise if he matched Laver’s 1969 feat of winning a calendar-year Grand Slam.
Even the sun, unseen in Paris for more than a week of a wet and gloomy tournament, paid tribute by coming out moments after his victory.
It is, and long has been, Murray’s misfortune to be playing at the same time as Federer, Nadal and, most of all, the man born just seven days after him in 1987.
This was his tenth Grand Slam final, a British record he holds jointly with Fred Perry. The eight he has lost have been to Federer (three) and Djokovic (five).
But proud as the Scot is of being the first British man to reach a Roland Garros final since 1937, he will know he could have done more to hinder Djokovic’s march towards immortality.
The British No1 was rightly furious when morons in the crowd, most of who were backing his opponent, repeatedly called out as he was preparing to serve.
But he will also be disappointed in himself because after winning the first set superbly, he did not put enough pressure on an opponent who had three times fallen at the final hurdle in Paris.
Murray produced one brilliant set, perhaps the best of his life.
But to beat Djokovic at a Slam these days you need to find three. Even then it is sometimes not enough. And the Scot made life too easy for the world No1 in what became a one-sided contest.
To have a real chance of winning, Murray had to do two things — win the first set, as he had done in all his ten victories over Djokovic, and serve well for the whole match.
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The first goal he accomplished brilliantly, recovering from dropping his serve in the opening game to take full advantage of Djokovic’s tight, malfunctioning forehand.
But after Djokovic had saved a break point in the opening game of the second set, the match changed completely.
As Murray’s first serve percentage level dropped alarmingly, Djokovic’s game flicked up a notch from “improving” to “insanely good”.
Murray’s forehand had been the dominant weapon of the first set, so Djokovic battered his backhand instead.
He hardly seemed to miss as he won 14 games out of 17 to take the match away from his opponent.
By the fourth set, the Scot was staggering like a Glaswegian drunk under the relentless barrage of deep, laser-guided ground strokes.
The nerves which Murray had hoped would prey on Djokovic’s mind surfaced only when the Serb was two breaks ahead again near the end.
Murray retrieved one when Djokovic served for the title a first time and then held his own to give the faintest glimmer of hope that he could conjure a remarkable comeback.
When, at 5-4 40/15, Djokovic saw two championship points come and go, you wondered if he just might become tennis’ answer to Devon Loch.
But he is a sporting thoroughbred and, after finishing things off, the question now is how much more can he achieve before his time is up?
With that monkey off his back, Djokovic can attack other landmarks.
This was his 12th Grand Slam, putting him just two behind Nadal and Sampras.
Freed of his French curse, Djokovic can dream of overhauling Federer’s 17 and earn the right to be called the greatest of all time.
The Herculean challenge for Murray and everyone else is to find a way of stopping him.
And the Scot hinted that home advantage will work for him over the next month after the hostile French crowd.
He said: “It is good to go through things like that, it toughens you up.
“When I go back to playing at Queen’s and then Wimbledon the atmosphere will be a lot different. It will give me a boost, for sure.”
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