Australian Open 2012: Novak Djokovic Has Uphill Climb to Defend Grand Slam Title

Winning one Grand Slam tournament is difficult enough. Defending a title at a given event is often an even more daunting task—not that Novak Djokovic will be at all deterred by the field in his pursuit of yet another Australian Open championship.

Rather, it's clear that doing so will be anything but easy.

After sailing through his first four matches at Melbourne Park, The Djoker found himself up against a bit of adversity in the person of Lleyton Hewitt. The saucy Aussie pushed Djokovic to four sets, seemingly strengthening as the tilt went on but ultimately losing, 6-1 6-3 4-6 6-3.

Along the way, though, Hewitt helped to reveal something of a blueprint for rattling Djokovic on the court, if not beating him:

Make him work. Test his stamina. Grind it out.

Of course, Hewitt still came up short, but in forcing Novak to drop a set at the Aussie for the first time this year, he lent another modicum of hope to Djokovic's next opponent, No. 5-seed David Ferrer.

Ferrer has something that very few people in the world can boast—past success against Djokovic, at least relatively speaking. Ferrer is 5-6 all-time against Novak, once of which came at the 2011 ATP World Tour Finals. The 29-year-old Spaniard is excellent on the serve, and will need to be at the top of his game to outwork and outlast a spectacular hard-court returner like Djokovic.

Assuming Djokovic slithers his way past Ferrer, he'll likely have to face No. 4-seed Andy Murray in the semis, against whom he has a 6-4 career mark, before bracing himself for either Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal in an epic "Trivalry" conclusion to the festivities Down Under.

All of this is well within Djokovic's range of ability. The greater challenge for the big Serbian lies not so much in hoisting the trophy at week's end, but defending his adopted turf along the way.

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