Novak Djokovic showed a touch of class after being swept aside by Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon final. The young Spaniard, 21, romped to a straight sets victory and barely broke a sweat as he outfoxed his 24-time Grand Slam champion opponent, 37, at almost every turn on Centre Court.
It marked Alcaraz’s second triumph at Wimbledon, having beaten Djokovic in five sets in the 2023 final. It also saw him become just the third man ever to win four major titles before the age of 22.
Seconds after the winning point, the pair embraced at the net, and according to Alcaraz, Djokovic was nothing but charming. “When I saw him this year at Wimbledon for the first time, and he was dealing with his knee, we joked and I told him he was a superhuman, a titan,” he told Spanish outlet Marca.
Since then, every time we saw each other here he called me a titan and on the net he said to me: ‘Titan, congratulations, you deserve it’. I don’t remember much else.
Djokovic wasn’t the only high-profile star to lavish Alcaraz with praise either. The Spaniard received congratulatory messages from the likes of Hollywood actor Will Smith, Brazilian football superstar Neymar and Formula 1 ace Lewis Hamilton, among others.
I was surprised by Lewis Hamilton’s congratulations because he had never written to me before and we had never interacted,” Alcaraz noted. “I am sure there are some more that I have missed, but I am very excited to receive them all.”
When asked what was going through his head the moment he clinched the third set on Sunday, Alcaraz said: “Above all, relief at the last moment of the match, having won it and having them come back. In the end, winning it in the tie-break relieved me. Likewise, I felt satisfaction for everything I’ve been through taking care of my body, with all the little things I’ve been dealing with and for all the work we’ve put in these four weeks here.”
Alcaraz’s triumph at SW19 means he’s now just one-sixth of the way to tying Djokovic’s all-time Grand Slam record, and likely has the best part of a decade-and-a-half to reach the tally. That said, he tried his best to play down talk of going after the record.
I don’t know what the future holds for me. In the end, the future is uncertain and anything can happen in a few years, things can turn in many directions, one way or the other,” he admitted. “We can’t take anything for granted. What I can say is that we’re going to fight. We know we’re on the right path, doing things right. If we continue with this ambition, this desire to train and fight every day, I think I can do great things, so let’s continue down this path and see what the future holds for us.”
If he goes on to win the US Open later this year Alcaraz will become just the fifth man in the Open Era to win three out of four slams in a calendar year, having already lifted the French Open title last month. Mats Wilander was the first to achieve the feat in 1988, before Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Djokovic all followed suit after the turn of the century.
