Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a man of rigour and strength. I’ve been around for a long, long year, stolen many a man’s Grand Slams and faith. I was ’round when Roger Federer had his moment of doubt and pain. Made damn sure that Andy Murray lost his hip and sealed his fate. Stuck around Roland Garros when I saw it was time for a change. Killed the kings and their pretenders. Rafa screamed in vain. Just as every saint is a sinner and all the sinners are saints, as heads is tails, just call me Djoker, because I’m in need of some restraint.Mick Jagger’s ode to Lucifer could very easily be retrofitted for Novak Djokovic, a figure for whom tennis fans have developed a begrudging sympathy over the years. But Carlos Alcaraz had no such sympathy. He had his own date with destiny. Before the semi-finals, the Australian Open had been dubbed a ‘boring’ tournament, one where a SinCaraz final was inevitable and the rest of the matches could have been an email.
Both semis robbed us of that idea.First, Alcaraz stumbled before recovering to beat Zverev. Then Djokovic upset the applecart, defying physics, biomechanics, and Father Time to defeat Sinner. This set up one of the most delectable tennis matches in recent memory: a man hoping to complete 25 Grand Slams versus a man hoping to become the youngest ever to complete the Career Grand Slam.Djokovic had never lost an Australian Open final. Alcaraz hadn’t won it yet.That Alcaraz is something special has been evident to anyone who has watched tennis. After Alcaraz beat Djokovic in the 2023 Wimbledon final – a surface that wasn’t even supposed to be conducive to his natural game – Djokovic summed up Alcaraz’s remarkable abilities: “I think people have been talking in the past 12 months or so about his game consisting of certain elements from Roger, Rafa, and myself. I would agree with that. I think he’s got basically the best of all three worlds.”Game, as the phrase goes, recognises game.And that was five Slams ago, and Alcaraz has evolved into an even scarier monster, albeit one that is so cute you wouldn’t mind finding him under your bed. He has looked to reclaim the pejorative ‘serve bot’, sought greater control over his forehand, developed an assassin-like patience – not going for the kill – but waiting for the precise moment to pull the trigger. And yet, after the first set, it looked like the Serb’s match to lose, completely controlling the ball, with Alcaraz a bystander for all intents and purposes. Djokovic was on an 87-match unbeaten run after winning the first set, and the last time he dropped a match after winning the first set was Wimbledon 2023 against the same opponent. A younger – how ridiculous does that sound – Alcaraz might have panicked. But the slightly older version kept his cool despite the early reversal, making Djokovic vacillate from one end of the court to another. The only time the Spaniard appeared ruffled was by the roof situation, which was left half-open despite windy conditions.But it was evident that Djokovic couldn’t keep up his first set dominance. The momentum began to shift in the second, the nature of rallies changed. Alcaraz started stepping behind, started taking Djokovic’s deeper balls early. The rallies went on longer, designed to tire Djokovic till he made a mistake. By the third set, Alcaraz was pulling ahead, his consistency proving too much for the Old Master. By the fourth, the two were playing longer rallies. Djokovic’s serve still held, but Alcaraz’s returns were now more penetrating and sharper. At 5-5, a pivotal rally stretched into the teens — neither man giving an inch — before Alcaraz delivered a short forehand that Djokovic couldn’t pin down, earning the break. On the championship point, a long rally played out with heavy, spinning balls from both sides, Djokovic scrambling to stay in it, before his last forehand landed long and Alcaraz raised his arms in triumph. And yet watching Djokovic miss out on Number 25 didn’t feel like the end. Djokovic has never treated time as a gentleman’s agreement. After all, the man of rigour and strength has been here before and stayed longer than anyone expected. The Stones told us you can’t always get what you want. But Djokovic has spent a lifetime proving that if you try – really try – you might just bend destiny into one last chorus. And if this was the end of a verse, it did not sound like a fade-out. It sounded like a pause. And knowing Novak Djokovic, he will always be up for a chorus.
As he told Alcaraz after the match: “You’re still so young and have so much time ahead of you. I’m sure we’ll see each other many more times over the next 10 years,” Djokovic said with a smile.” Knowing Djokovic’s resolve, that only seems like a half-joke.
