Alcaraz outlasts Djokovic in epic Wimbledon final

LONDON — In a brilliant, gutsy performance Sunday in the Wimbledon final, world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz won his second Grand Slam title in less than a year, defeating seven-time Wimbledon champ Novak Djokovic 1-6, 7-6 (6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4 and ending the 36-year-old Serbian’s quest for the calendar Grand Slam in 2023.

The match lasted four hours and 42 minutes and was the third-longest final in Wimbledon history.

“It’s more special to play a final against a legend from our sport,” Alcaraz, 20, said ahead of the match. “If you want to be the best, you have to beat the best.”

Playing in only his fourth tournament on grass, the player from Spain has proved to be a quick study on the surface. In two previous appearances at the All England Club, Alcaraz had finished no better than the fourth round. He displayed marked improvement last year, but nothing about his performance signaled he would lift the Gentlemen’s Singles Trophy one year later or have the game — or gumption — to beat one of the all-time great grass players on Centre Court.

Before the second set Sunday, Djokovic’s serve had been broken only three times in 103 games this fortnight. Alcaraz did better than that in three sets, storming back from a disastrous opening hour of tennis. Djokovic was clinical in the first set. He dismantled Alcaraz’s forehand and rushed him into errors. Alcaraz won only his final service game that set, but he came alive on every point, as if the game were suddenly coming into focus.

After trading breaks with Djokovic in the second set, he faced him in a tiebreak. At Wimbledon. Down a set. In the final. On Centre Court. And he became the first person to beat the 23-time Grand Slam champ in a tiebreak since Rafael Nadal in the quarters of last year’s French Open. After clinching the 85-minute second set, he lifted his racket to the sky, enticing the Wimbledon crowd to enjoy the moment with him.

“Carlos! Carlos! Carlos!” they chanted in response. If there is a 12th man in football and a sixth man in basketball, the second man at Centre Court helped shift the momentum Alcaraz’s way. He won the next set 6-1 but lost focus and dropped the next set 3-6, which forced a fifth. Then, in a sensational display of grit, endurance and newfound nerves of steel, he broke Djokovic’s serve in the third game and eventually toppled the Wimbledon great.

“Playing a final in Wimbledon is something that I dreamed about when I started playing tennis,” Alcaraz said Friday. “It’s going to be a really emotional moment for me. For Novak, it’s one more day, one more moment. For me, it’s going to be the best moment of my life.”

Alcaraz said many times this fortnight that he believed he could beat Djokovic in the final. But there’s a vast divide between believing and doing. What Alcaraz accomplished on Sunday — in a changing-of-the-guard moment that’s being compared to Roger Federer’s 2001 upset of Pete Sampras here in the fourth round — is difficult to overstate. Djokovic hadn’t lost a match here since 2017. He is a seven-time Wimbledon champion and already won the first two majors of this year.

“Every time I step on Centre Court, it’s unlike any other feeling in sport,” Djokovic said earlier this week.

Djokovic was also on track to add a rare accomplishment: a calendar Grand Slam. That a player with 17 games of grass-court experience ended his hope of holding all four major titles within the same calendar year is remarkable. That Alcaraz simply outplayed Djokovic on the court where he built his dynasty is legend-making. With his win, Alcaraz becomes the second-youngest player to beat Djokovic in a major. The youngest? Alcaraz’s compatriot, Nadal, in the 2006 French Open quarterfinals.

Last month, after suffering a disappointing loss to Djokovic in the Roland Garros semifinal, Alcaraz opted to play a grass-court warmup tournament at London’s Queen’s Club. He looked uncomfortable and uncertain in the first round as he deciphered how to translate his game to grass. But with each match, he improved his footwork and moved with more confidence out of the corners. He said he’d been watching video of eight-time Wimbledon champion Roger Federer, the player to whom he’s most compared, and former world No. 1 Andy Murray. He said he considers them to be the best movers on grass and wanted to emulate their style.

He won that Queen’s Club tournament and reclaimed the No. 1 ranking he’d relinquished to Djokovic after the French. More important than the ranking, though, was the belief he gained with that title.

“To know that I’m capable of a good level on grass, to be the champion of every tournament, feels special,” he said at the time. “I see Wimbledon as the most beautiful tournament on the tour, a tournament I really wanted to win someday. I have a lot of confidence to make that dream possible this year.”

But he had no easy route. Over seven matches, Alcaraz toppled three top-25 players, as well as Nos. 2 and 3 in the world, to take the title. After his win against Medvedev, he said he’d played one of his best matches not only on grass, but on any surface, and called his execution, “amazing.” Then he graded himself an, “eight out of 10.” Sunday, he raised that score.

“It could become my best surface,” he said this week. “I always liked to play on grass. Probably after this year, even more.”