After a performance that suffused high artistry with cold‑blooded ruthlessness, Carlos Alcaraz was asked to predict how many grand slam titles he might win. “I don’t know my limit,” he replied. “But at the end of my career I want to sit at the same table as the big guys. That’s my main goal.”
Would anyone dare bet against it now? Not after this three-set demolition of Novak Djokovic, which gave the Spaniard his fourth grand slam title at the age of just 21 years and 70 days. That is more than Andy Murray has won across his entire career. And ahead of Rafael Nadal (three), Djokovic (one) and Roger Federer (none) at the same point in their lives. Already he is breathing in a rarefied air.
The Spaniard has long felt like a tennis player moving in the fastest lane of all, and with this victory he also joins the list of now six male players who won the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year in the Open era, along with Rod Laver, Björn Borg, Nadal, Federer and Djokovic. Tennis’s big guys.
Indeed, across two and a half hours of glorious tennis on Centre Court, there were only two small missteps. The first came when Alcaraz blew three match points at 5-4 in the third set, the last one after someone shouted out “Yes!” when he was just about to connect with a winning smash.
The second? Well that came after Alcaraz had blown kisses to all four corners of Centre Court and emitted a scream of delight – and then briefly forgot how to get to the players’ box to celebrate. One senses he will have plenty more opportunities to find the quickest route in the future.
In front of the Princess of Wales, there was also an undeniable sense of changing of the guard. After all, this was Djokovic’s second heaviest defeat at a grand slam final – behind only Rafael Nadal beating him more convincingly, for the loss of just seven games at the 2020 French Open – and he is not getting any younger.
And there was no greater admirer of Alcaraz’s play than the man standing on the other side of the court. “He just was better than me in every aspect of the game: in movement, in the way he was just striking the ball beautifully, serving great, everything,” said Djokovic, who deserves great credit for the way he loses as well as wins.
“I can always find the flaws, things that I maybe should have executed better. But I don’t think that would have changed the course of the match. From the very beginning, he was at least half a step better than I was in every way.”
Years from now, people will probably still be talking about the first game of the match: a 14-minute, seven-deuce, 20-point mini-epic that set the tone for what was to come.
Four times Alcaraz had break point. Four times Djokovic saved. Centre Court gasped as the Spaniard hit stupendous return winners on the forehand and backhand side – and again when he sent makeable groundstrokes long, or into the net.
But when Djokovic finally sent one wide, and Alcaraz finally got an early break, relaxation flowed through him like spa water. “The first game was incredible,” Djokovic said. “One of the longest first games I’ve ever played. That set the tone.
“I think he was coming out from the blocks ready to battle and ready to play his best level right away, which wasn’t the case last year where I started better, had a comfortable first-set win,” he said. “Today, from the first point, he was there, he was ready.”
And then some. Last year, Alcaraz found himself dropping the first set 6-1. This year, he raced through it for the loss of just two games. Perhaps the big difference was the Spaniard’s serve, as he won 86% of first-serve points in the first and second set.
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It meant that Djokovic was trying to force the issue – without success. In the first set he repeatedly came to the net but only won four out of 12 approaches. The pressure that Alcaraz was applying had turned him into a gambler who rolls the dice rather than plays the percentages.
The second set followed a similar pattern. At 4-2 down Djokovic played a drop volley that would have been a winner against almost anyone else, only to see his opponent scamper and slide across the court to reach it and win the point – and soon the set.
In truth it looked like a mismatch at this stage: a 21-year-old in the prime of life taking on a 37-year-old just 39 days after undergoing surgery on the meniscus in his knee. Alcaraz looked just too quick, too cute, too good. Rarely has a tennis racket been wielded like a matador’s knife.
It says something for Djokovic’s resolve that he willed himself back into the match in the third set. But after a minor wobble at match point, Alcaraz took back control to march deeper into tennis history.
“I don’t consider myself a champion yet,” he said. “But I will try to keep going and building my path, my journey.”
And it seems just a matter of time before he is telling the big guys to make some space at that top table.
Source: theguardian.com
