Carlos Alcaraz’s Victory Through The Eyes of a Djokovic Fan

By Igor Lazić

 Only the sound of opening a bottle of wine, the unscrewing of a cork lodged in more than 20 years ago, and the moment of perfect silence that comes after are comparable to the sound of an ace in a Wimbledon final. This was Roger Federer’s second in a row and 23^rd of the match. Two match points. 

July 14th, 2019. 15,000 people inside Centre Court and a few more thousand around the stadium and on Henman Hill are on the edge of their seats, as if the captain of England is on his way to shoot the deciding penalty in a World Cup final at Wembley. 

Most of the people reading this already know what I’m talking about, and quite a few had their heart skip a few beats at the thought of one the most remarkable matches in tennis history (I’m sorry Roger fans. I love you.). 

Four years and two days later, as Novak Djokovic took on Carlos Alcaraz in another Wimbledon final, all I could think about was that match. The story was writing itself. A king, basking in his throne and all of its glory, once again doing the impossible and refusing to die. 

Some 2.000 kilometers away from me, Alcaraz, the young Spanish contender, was walking towards the baseline gathering his thoughts and trying to calm himself down. He took four balls from the ball kids as he usually does, found the two he wanted to start the most important game of his life with, and thought to himself, How the hell did I get here? 

Love-15

Three weeks and a couple of days before the Wimbledon final, Carlos Alcaraz walked out on Centre Court at Queen’s Club with mixed feelings. He had been having the best season of his career so far, coming to London with a record of 35 wins and only four losses, with four titles next to his name. The only accolades escaping him in 2023 were the two things he probably most desired at the start of the year – a Grand Slam title and the number one ranking in the world. All of those things were held by one man: Novak Đoković.

It was the third grass tournament of the Spaniard’s life. Like many promising talents before him, Carlos also struggled to find his footing on the sport’s most challenging surface to conquer. “The undercard” to Wimbledon’s “greatest tournament in tennis,” Queen’s, was supposed to give the world number two a couple of matches to transition from clay to grass, in hopes of improving his best result at the third Grand Slam of the season (R4 in 2022).

Alas, his first round match against the Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech didn’t start the way Alcaraz imagined. Just 40 minutes into the contest, he was down a set after losing consecutive service games at the end of it. He was struggling to translate his powerful game onto grass, often being half a second too late and more often than not having trouble moving swiftly on the slick grass court. After lengthy and exhausting second and third sets, chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani roared the most exciting six words in all of tennis – SIX. GAMES. ALL. FINAL. SET. TIEBREAK.

Exactly twenty-six days and eleven straight wins later, Carlos Alcaraz was looking Novak Đoković dead in the eye, ready to win one more game which was going to give the Serb his first Wimbledon defeat after 2,194 days. He served a 201 km/h bomb down the T, and after a decent backhand return by Đoković, Alcaraz went immediately to his bread and butter – the dropshot. No matter how hard you try, you can never be fully prepared for the first time in your life when you serve for the Wimbledon title. Alcaraz netted the drop shot. Love-15. 

15-all

Have you ever managed to achieve your first childhood dream? If not, have you ever gotten close to attaining it? For most people, their first childhood dream consists of something so magical and unattainable, their older selves would not even dare to think about. Carlos Alcaraz is not like most people. 

Born a son of a former professional tennis player, the young Carlitos made his first steps on a tennis court very early in his life. He had gotten his first tennis racquet at three, and started playing the year after. While Đoković was busy coming back to the top of the tennis mountain and beginning his streak of four straight Wimbledon titles, Alcaraz started making history. 

With a wildcard into the qualifying of a local F5 Futures in Murcia, even before he started playing on the junior circuit, Carlos left everyone in awe. A wee, scrawny kid, barely bigger than the tennis bag he carried so proudly, he managed to get into the main draw with three gutsy victories, two of which came after losing the first set. 

In the first round, the young Spaniard defeated the second seed and a Top 300 player at the time, Federico Gaio, in another three-set-thriller, which saw him become the first player born in 2003 to win a professional match and earn himself an ATP point. He managed to get another victory, before running out of steam and losing in the quarterfinals at his first pro tournament, at only 14 years of age. 

So, when the Wimbledon crowd started chanting “Nole, Nole” after the Spaniard’s dropshot landed in the net, Carlos Alcaraz knew what he had to do. The track record was there. Every single hurdle he faced up to that point, he had cleared with astonishing success. He closed his eyes, composed himself quickly and decided to once again show the world he was the living, breathing example of his grandfather’s saying – cabeza, corazón, cojones. 

Carlos found another great first serve, but the greatest returner of all time had an answer ready. A short cross-court backhand rally followed, before the Spaniard delivered the first of the two incredible moments of the game. 

Novak’s shorter, not-as-usually-sharp backhand cross-court gave Alcaraz enough time to run around his backhand and feather a forehand dropshot. Which sane person, half a minute after giving away the first point of the single most important game of your life with an errant drop shot, decides to hit another one?! Carlos Alcaraz is not your ordinary human being. 

Đoković got to the ball, delivered it deep into Spaniard’s side of the court, only to shortly realize he was the prey in a situation where he had found himself as the hunter oh-so-many times. Carlos delivered a picture-perfect lob over Novak’s backhand side, much to the delight of 15.000 souls sitting at Center Court. 15-all. 

30-15 

It is said that in moments of pure bliss, right after achieving a dream or a major goal, amid all the clatter and celebration around it, people tend to drown out the noise and reminisce about all the things that happened along the way and brought them to the exact place they were in. 

The astonishing journey that began in 2018 and continued throughout the years became gradually more impressive. At only 15 years old, Alcaraz won his first challenger match, in a showcase that life really is a funny little mistress – it happened against none other than Jannik Sinner. 2019 also saw him win his first futures tournament, but 2020 was the year where the wider audience would get to know Carlos. 

The still-underage Spaniard got a wildcard into an ATP 500 tournament in Rio, where he defeated Ramos-Vinolas in a grueling three-set, three-and-a-half hour thriller in the first round, which finished around 3:00 a.m. local time. Later on, he went on to win four Challenger events and lose in the final of the fifth, which propelled him up the ranking enough for a place in the Australian Open qualifying at the start of 2021. 

Carlos got his first Grand Slam victory Down Under and by the end of the year, he had already managed to win a match at all four Slams, the biggest being the upset of the year on Arthur Ashe in R3 against Tsitsipas in a match-tiebreak. He won his first title at the end of July in Umag, before dominating the Next Gen ATP Finals with five straight wins with a single lost set. 

By that time, Carlos Alcaraz had become a household name (among tennis fans, anyway). Raw power behind his shots comparable with the likes of Gonzalez, del Potro and Wawrinka, combined with the elegance and poise of a ballet dancer who has practiced the same sequence tens of thousands of time, all put together by lighting quick movement of one of the world’s best sprinters, made this young man an absolute must-watch every time he stepped foot on a tennis court.

It was only a matter of time before Carlos would start winning the world’s biggest tournaments, and the events of 2022 were somehow even more impressive than all of the ones before. His first Masters title came in Miami, where he became the third youngest player (Chang, Nadal) to win a Masters tournament, only to one-up himself only a month later. He won the Madrid Masters defeating Nadal, Đoković and Zverev back-to-back-to-back, in a showcase that left many people saying he was the number one favorite at Roland Garros. 

That was proven an overstatement when he lost in the quarterfinal to Zverev, but what failed to happen in Paris happened in New York. 12 months after announcing himself at the biggest stage, Alcaraz shook the tennis world with another gargantuan earthquake, winning the U.S. Open by defeating Casper Ruud in the final. That victory also meant he was the new number one, becoming the youngest male tennis player to do so in the Open Era. 

Whoever came up with this idea of all these thoughts and moments going through your mind as you’re slowly getting your fingertips onto the holy grail of your dreams was probably a low-level writer like myself, who just needed a poetic way to create a magical story. Because, truth be told, there was no reminiscing in the mind of Carlos Alcaraz as he waited for Fergus Murphy to silence 15,000 untamed souls in the Mecca of tennis. All he was probably thinking about was the next point, and my God what a point did he produce.

This time he went with a slice serve out wide, and after seeing Novak slip after the return, he immediately rushed the net. The approach shot wasn’t the best, which gave Đoković time to get back into the point and launch his signature sliding cross-court backhand passing shot, a shot so inconceivably difficult, yet made to look so easy every time the Serb wins a point with it. What came next was probably one of the best under-pressure shots of all time. 

Fully stretched, nearly tumbling forward, barely getting a racquet on the ball, Alcaraz found an exquisite, Federer-esque backhand drop volley that fell barely halfway into the service box for a winner. 30:15. 

30-all 

This was not the first time Djokovic found himself with his back against the wall. In fact, one could argue his entire legacy was built on the foundation of some of the most remarkable comebacks and feats of mental strength ever seen on a tennis court. Every single fan of the sport around the world knows that you cannot write Novak Đoković off until you hear the words “game, set, match.” 

However, the beginning of the match did not give off an impression that Novak was going to need to pull another one of his rabbits out of the hat at any point in the contest. A first Wimbledon final is a nerve-wracking experience to start, and many have failed to meet the occasion on their given day. 

After saving a break point with a great serve in the first game of the match, Novak found himself in command of the set very quickly. A couple of deep returns combined with some unsettled unforced errors by Alcaraz, and Đoković had already broken in his first return game of the match. The rest of the set followed the blueprint of the first two games. Novak was able to find answers to some big serves from Alcaraz, and the Spaniard was too tight from the baseline and wanted to do too much too early. With another break that saw him race to a 5-0 lead, the Serb was able to close out the set in which he only made 2 unforced errors. The 6-1 scoreline didn’t bode well for an epic final, or Alcaraz’s chances.

For some of the older fans who were there to witness the Federer-Nadal trilogy from 2006-2008, this match had a very similar energy from the get-go. A young Spanish apprentice trying to dethrone the older, more experienced master who was dominating the Wimbledon courts in previous years. The first set of the 2006 final saw the Swiss bagel Nadal before fending off a potential comeback in four sets after having a two-set lead. 

Just like his idol managed to bring the fight to Roger by getting the second and third sets to a tiebreak, the 20-year-old from Murcia was able to do the same in the second set against Djokovic. A streak of 15 consecutive Grand Slam tiebreak victories was on the line for Novak, dating back to the second round of Australian Open when he lost a second set tie-break to Enzo Couacaud.

Đoković raced to a 3-0 lead, like he usually did during the streak, and it seemed he was once again on the brink of a dominating win in a tiebreak. After a couple of good serves from both sides, some failed drop-shots and tense back-and-forth exchanges and the giant shiny scoreboard behind showed a 6-5 lead for the Serb. 

Nearly three hours later, while 15,000 tennis lunatics could not believe their eyes at the volley they’ve just seen, Novak found himself in a well-known position. The last time the Centre Court crowd was in such a state of frenzy was four years earlier as Roger Federer served his second ace in a row and got to 40-15, two championship points. He’s already been here before. He already knows what he has to do. He’s done it before. He can do it again. 

A flat bomb serve out wide was met with one of the best backhand returns of the match, falling just in front of Alcaraz’s feet. The Spaniard barely managed to get the ball across the other side of the net, and an easy forehand putaway by Đoković followed, reminiscent of the world’s best strikers that have just wrong-footed the goalkeeper. 30:30.

40-30  

Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps…The list of some of the clutchest athletes of all time simply would not be complete without naming Novak Đoković. Saving two match points not once, not twice but three times in the span of 10 years against one of his biggest rivals and going on to win all three matches, saving some crucial break points in the deciding set against Nadal in the epic 2018 Wimbledon semifinal, which propelled Djokovic’s return to dominance, the Shanghai Masters finals against Murray in 2012..

I could probably spend another 45 minutes just naming all of the unbelievable fightbacks this man had throughout his career, with each being more unique and unforgettable than the last. So, when he found himself two points away from defeat, I should’ve had all the belief in the world he could once again prove that impossible doesn’t exist in the mind of Novak Đoković. That he would break serve and come back to win the match.

But I didn’t. At least not like I usually do. Because he didn’t feel like the Novak Đoković we usually see on the court. 

I’ve watched hundreds of Novak’s matches and I could probably recall all of his Grand Slam finals, even though I was only 8 years old when he won his first. Most of his matches have some sort of a pattern and it is more often than not too hard to guess what will happen next.

When he was 5-4* down in the second set tie-break, there were two possibilities. He loses one of his two serves, completely goes off the rails and with all of the momentum in the world, Carlos wins both second and third sets and he now has to win two in a row for his fifth straight Wimbledon. The other option was: he wins both points on serve, grinds out a mini-break to close the second set and goes on to win in straight sets. 

What I didn’t expect, however, was exactly what happened next: Đoković won two very intense rallies, secured himself a set point, only to net consecutive practice-level backhands and give away a set point. This from a man who went three straight Wimbledon-final-tie-breaks against Federer in 2019 without a single unforced error, and seven straight tie-breaks during Roland Garros without one. 

Unfortunately, when Carlos won the second set with a backhand return winner off of a very poorly thought-out attempt at a serve-and-volley from Novak, what followed wasn’t exactly quantum science. Đoković went completely missing, rushing with his serves with almost no breaks in between points, looking completely disinterested after falling a double break behind off the back of a brutal 26-minute service game. Merely an hour after having a set point for a 2-0 lead, Novak Đoković went to the toilet after Fergus Murphy announced Alcaraz’s third-set victory.

A fifth great first serve followed, but the Serb had no answer this time, sending the stretch return long. 40-30. The first championship point for Alcaraz’s maiden Wimbledon title. 

During a seven minute break between the third and the fourth set, a good friend of mine, who follows tennis only during the Wimbledon fortnight, sent me a message: Are you anxious or do you think [Novak’s] got this?

Most of my friends who have any interest in tennis know how calm I am while watching Đoković’s matches – I’ll get annoyed at an unforced error or two, but deep down there is this unshakeable belief that he can win every single match he participates in – mostly because he actually has done everything there is to do on a tennis court. 

But this time – this time was different. This was unknown territory, a new challenger who was not only not backing down, but kept marching forward even with every lost point, carrying a smile that showed he was relishing every damn second on that court, all while Novak was starting to look like a regular 36-year-old athlete who was losing a battle with Father Time. 

So, I’ll admit it: No, I was not sure if Đoković had got it.

The start of the fourth set only managed to shake my belief up even more. With each passing point, there was this all-too-well known feeling of inevitability that I had while watching Đoković lose to Nadal year after year at Roland Garros at the start of 2010s, while getting so damn close each and every time. 

When Alcaraz got to two break points in the second game of the set, there were only two possible roads from there. Either he breaks and dominates the fourth set, or this was the moment that ends up on those “Tennis moments that precede unfortunate events” Twitter pages after Đoković makes a comeback and wins in five. Yet again, neither of the two happened. 

Novak did manage to grind out that game and get himself a little bit back in the match, but we’ll get to the other point later. He started reading Carlos’ serves once again, the Spaniard’s intensity dropped, and for the first time since the fourth game of the match – Đoković was able to get the break. 

A couple of easy service holds followed, with Alcaraz having an atrocious game while serving to stay in the set, and we were going to see a deciding set in Gentlemen’s Final for the first time since 2019 (seriously, Federer fans, I promise there will be no more references to that final). 

***

My phone went off once again. “He has this in the bag easy – 6:3.” My father, after declaring Novak would lose and should probably go home just half an hour ago, was proudly shouting at the TV predicting “6:2, at worst.” Me on the other hand – I was still unsure of anything that was going to happen, because the second half of the fourth set felt more like an Alcaraz energy drop than a Đoković resurgence, and the match still wasn’t in Novak’s hands.

A break point was saved in the first game of the fifth. A break point chance was created in the second game of the decider, and my God will that point haunt the dreams of many Đoković’s fans. Novak had that point won three or four times, only to have to hit another shot each time. The last one, a forehand drive-volley off a lob that looked like it was maybe going out (though slo-mo replay suggests it would have hit the line), ended up in the net. 

We could discuss whether Novak had an idea he was standing near the baseline, whether he should’ve let it drop or whether he would’ve hit an overhead winner if the wind didn’t cause the ball to suddenly dip. We could, but there would be no point. 

A clutch moment in the match so many times seized by Đoković, slipped out of his hands this time – for the second time that day. Alcaraz, carried by a delirious crowd that viewed him as one of their own during a Sunday afternoon, played a near perfect return game and all of a sudden it was 1-2* instead of a three-game lead for Novak.  

There were no break points in the following games, but it would be dishonest to say there were not any chances for Novak to fight for the break back. At 3-2 and 15-30 on Alcaraz’s serve, Novak made two forehand unforced errors, followed by an ace from Alcaraz to win the game. At 4-3, 15-love, it was the backhand which failed Djokovic once again with two more unforced errors, which were followed by a drop-shot winner and an ace from Alcaraz to seal the game. 

When you produce seven unforced errors at different key points during the match, you’re bound to be punished at some point. Add in two forehand unforced errors on break points in the third, before the set got busted wide open, that now becomes nine situations in which Đoković simply did not live up to his standards or the ones necessary to win a Wimbledon final – and it was painfully obvious.  

But as the camera was panning from an unsatisfied Novak Đoković, to the family of the young Spaniard and his mentor Juan Carlos Ferrero, who looked as stressed as you’ve ever seen him before, as Carlos Alcaraz threw that ball up to the sky, as his sixth straight first serve landed inside the service box, this one at 207 km/h, with Novak’s return landing barely halfway inside the court – somewhere deeply buried inside of me, underneath a giant pile of counter-evidence and logic, there was still a part which believed in miracles from a man known for turning water into wine on a tennis court. 

„The King is dead! Long live the King!“ shouted 15.000 ecstatic souls jumping from their seats at the world’s greatest tennis stadium. After 20 long years of the same, well-known four rulers, London had a new King.  

While Alcaraz laid down in disbelief of what he had just achieved, much like Federer did exactly 20 years ago as he won his first Wimbledon championship, there was a feeling of unfamiliarity in the air. With Roger being retired, Nadal recovering from a surgery and preparing for what should be his last professional season on tour and Murray struggling to find pieces of his old self, the last string attaching us to the greatest era of men’s tennis is indeed Novak Đoković. 

I get it. People tend to get bored of old faces, especially after such a long time. Change is good. Change is natural. But when everything you’ve ever known starts to slowly disappear, you try to hang on to the familiar by any means necessary. 

I won’t get into detail whether or not this was a passing of the torch moment because, to be honest, that expression is massively overused and there isn’t a clear consensus on its meaning anymore. What I will say is that this feels like a canon event in tennis history. I don’t think this is the last time we see Novak break new records and fight for Grand Slam trophies. Just this year alone, he has already won both the Australian and French Open and was on a 27-match winning streak at Grand Slams. 

However, this final changed something. Do you remember the time you realized your parents were no Gods, but mere humans with the same problems and doubts just like you? The aura of invincibility around Đoković, usually there even at 36 years of age, wasn’t present this time. Wimbledon is his second home, just like the Rod Laver Arena. There is no tennis court in this world where he feels safer, more at peace than the stadium where he won some of the biggest battles at different points in his career. 

To come into another man’s sanctuary, where the best of the best failed to bring him down to his knees, and do it successfully the first time? That is nothing short of extraordinary. Just like any other puzzle before him, I’m not doubting that Đoković is also going to solve the Carlos Alcaraz riddle. What I do have doubts about is exactly how successful he is going to be at it and what effect it will have on other players. 

Because one thing is certain – the Tsitsipas’, Medvedev’s and Zverev’s of the world will have watched this final and thought to themselves – Novak is mortal. He is beatable.  

While the keys of men’s tennis are still in one man’s hands, it finally felt like we have gotten a worthy successor. I do not know when the keys will irrevocably change hands, or how long we are going to be blessed by watching this rivalry unfold – but I do know one thing. 

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the last act of the single greatest show you will have ever seen.