Novak Djokovic has a quaint way of putting it. “As a person, I’m really trying to stay with both legs on the earth and focus on the tennis, because that’s what I do, rather than be around the important people,” he said.

The 20-year-old Serb had been asked if he thought that he was changing as a character, whether the fame and the adulation were in danger of going to his spiky-haired head. He had arrived here via a stopover in Hollywood to attend the famed Tonight Show with Jay Leno, in which he took second billing to Bill Cosby and had not been fazed in such exalted company.

There is a lot of the showman in Djokovic. He is the prince of YouTube, he plays up but never plays unfairly and he is not Roger Federer. But what you see is a confident, resolute, fresh, talented man making prodigious strides. He is telling it like it is when he says: “A lot of people, if I can say it like that, got a little bit bored, Federer and [Rafael] Nadal winning and being so dominant throughout a couple of years already - it’s always good to see some new faces winning major events and I think the people like it.”

Yes they do, especially when these faces - thinking particularly of Djokovic, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Feliciano López and Gaël Monfils, the latter who is showing signs of progress after a difficult spell - are full of expression and vibrancy. Tennis is alive and well and ready to fly in the company of these young falcons.

For Djokovic, the year has started remarkably, from winning the first grand-slam tournament in Australia and now the first Masters Series event, the Pacific Life Open, with a 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 victory over Mardy Fish, of the United States.

Attention switches to the opposite coast for the Sony Ericsson Open, in Key Biscayne, Florida, beginning tomorrow, when Djokovic, the defending champion, has to hope that he has not used up too much of his positive energy. “It has been a dream start,” he said. “I said before the year began that my two goals were to be consistent with results to reach the Masters Cup and, hopefully, win one grand slam. I’m on the way in a very small amount of time.

“But I don’t want to stop here, even though I’ve been playing fantastic, and I’m lucky to have a lot of important tournaments on this [hard-court] surface, which suits me the best, so I’ll try to keep going. Coming from Indian Wells as the tournament winner, it is much easier to play.”

Andy Murray, the British No 1, will face Mario Ancic, the Croat, or Gilles Simon, of France, in his first match in Miami, having been given a bye into the second round.