Novak Djokovic has made four missteps that explain why he is not viewed the same way as Roger Federer and Raphael Nadal

Then he set up a new players’ body, the PTPA. He said it was to advocate for the betterment of all players. The problem was that he couldn’t bring a critical mass of the male players with him, and he didn’t enfold the women at all.

Next, he was defaulted out of the US Open when he lashed in frustration at a dead ball and it struck a lineswoman, occasioning his first defeat for the year after 26 wins.

Finally, he petitioned Australian Open chief Craig Tiley to relax quarantine conditions for tennis players in Melbourne. He said he was standing up not for himself – he was enjoying the relative liberty of Adelaide – but for his fellow workaday pros. Could not everyone see that?

But the trouble was that he was standing against protocols that an apprehensive local government and population – still bearing the chafe marks of their own long lockdown – were only too happy to see enforced. Could he not see that?

This is the Djokovic enigma. He is a peerless tennis player. He was brash once, but that was long ago. He seems personable, sometimes even statesmanlike. He was last to join the troika at the top of men’s tennis. If he was gatecrashing then, he is now destined to have the last and longest laugh. And yet still he divides people in a way that Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal don’t.

Last year, it was put to this columnist that it was simply charisma. Some have it, some don’t. Perhaps Kyrgios is right in that Djokovic simply tries too damned hard. On court, hard work is his secret. Off court, it means he regularly overreaches. Sometimes it seems he is foot-faulting his way to immortality.

At least Djokovic will always have the court, this court especially. At this year’s Australian Open, there will be no linespeople out there, nor Federer, to trip him up, leaving only Nadal. On Tuesday’s form, put him down for at least a semi-final already.

This was a match on a lofty plane match for so early in the season. The fact that there was only a scattering of fans in Rod Laver arena gave it a dystopian feel, as if the world’s population had been reduced to a few thousand and this now constituted a packed house.

Shapovalov has a big game, and leveraged it to a high level. He had Djokovic running, stretching, reaching and … winning. If only Djokovic’s ability to convert a bad position into a winner was translatable to other realms.

In two nearly identical sets of nearly an hour each, the rope between them scarcely budged until the last game of each, when Djokovic gave it a decisive wrench. For all of Shapovalov’s game, he did not get as far as one break point.

Djokovic celebrated with a trademark bellow, then backed up 20 minutes later for a tie-winning doubles triumph alongside Filip Krajinovic. Altogether, it was a sublime performance.

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And yet still there was that blind spot. In the Shapovalov match, the sun momentarily confounded him. Its angle was unfamiliar in a way no opponent’s return ever is these days.

His way of dealing with it was so Djokovic. A cap, then eye drops: eminently sensible. But he sent ballkids to fetch and deliver both, this in a tournament where strict measures are in place to minimise contact between players and auxiliaries. He broke no rules, almost certainly did no harm, nor did anyone complain. It was just the look.