How great the rivalry must have been so that Novak Djokovic, the best tennis player ever, was not enough to beat them: he had to survive them. He has had to live long enough on a court for the entire world, now, to recognize his story of epic and greatness, for the stands to chant his name, to shed the label of uncomfortable guest at the party between Federer and Nadal with which he began and to claim that of the best champion in history with which he ended. His polite astonishment upon hearing from the mouth of a journalist who had been a persecutor of Nadal and Federer and now of Sinner and Alcaraz is not surprising: like asking Messi what it feels like to persecute Ronaldinho before and now Lamine Yamal. “Something happened in the middle,” Nole responded. To recognize the seriousness of what happened in the middle, he had to reach almost 39 years of age and defeat five sets: Jannik Sinner. He has had to appear in a final in which no one expected him. Djokovic is never expected and is always the last to leave.
The Serbian, who has written his history in the ATP for 22 years, played his first final (which he won) in Australia 18 years ago. He tore down the pillars of his world, the old one, sustained by one of the best rivalries in sport, and is the only one capable of threatening the pillars of the new one, where another similar rivalry has been installed. It scares the Serbian’s career. Between your first Open and your last, you have had time to have a child and for that child to drive a car. In terms of elite sport, where the differences are minimal and subtle, assuming this is almost unsustainable. Unsustainable to assume that Djokovic is still here, at the foot of his rivals’ beds,
Minus one: Carlos Alcaraz. The brilliance of Alcaraz is, today, blinding. He is a man playing the tennis of the future and something even more valuable: having fun himself and others (even the gentlemanly Djokovic, who smiled a couple of times at the Murcian’s ingenuity). Álvaro Benito said in Eurosport that the match that Djokovic was playing against Sinner was a love song for tennis. Appreciation that extends to Alcaraz’s career, who at 22 years old has a collection of gallery points that makes him love this sport, sublimates it, fills him with joy and wonder; It is impossible not to love tennis watching Carlos Alcaraz with a racket in his hand.
Left to bring the rival closer to the net and hit him with a volley, monstrous forehands, angles, passings and a lot of legs, a lot of running to miraculous balls that lift the audience. Sprinter, marathon runner, hitter. And with a mind that remembers the legend who watches him, with a gesture of acceptance, sitting in the stands behind him: Rafa Nadal.
There are a handful of tennis players who can put a thousand balls on the line, but there are only two active players who can put them in a fifth set, with a match point against or in favor, through a winning hit. Without the arm shrinking in the slightest and without the confidence first cracking a little. And they both just played in Melbourne.
because he knew better how to read Djokovic’s exhaustion, because he recovered from the shock of the first set, where the Serbian played, with forehands, with Alcaraz’s set-up, which took a while to combust, who needed one of those points that agitate the public and himself, shouting “let’s go” and putting his little hand to his ear, as a sign that everything is starting to go well.
And it was. He passed Djokovic in the second, third and fourth and he did it, it was complicated, undermining Nole’s confidence in his body, in his energy, in his legs. Alcaraz arrived at balls that would not have been serious to lose and he did so to demand that Djokovic continue running and hitting; and every point that Djokovic had won and lost was a missile to his confidence. If you have to carefully choose the physical efforts you expend and the power that a point demands, and you lose it because on the other side there is a termite biting your legs and head, the body suffers. If the body suffers, the winning balls move a few centimeters, bad ones are called; The legs obey less, the drops and the angles crush them.
due to that failure, to deploy the usual, unlimited resources. Distracting the blow until the last moment, the impregnable tennis player rises to an inconceivable show that delivers everything he promises at the entrance. It is a fabulous circus, but the circus of a winner writing, as Djokovic wrote his, his own amazing story. Which is also this country’s love affair with tennis.
