To claim a record 25th grand-slam singles title, Novak Djokovic must do what he fell narrowly short of last year. Victory over Carlos Alcaraz in Sunday’s Wimbledon final is required to cement his status as the greatest player this sport has ever seen.
The rematch on Centre Court is set, 12 months on from that thrilling five-set battle in which Alcaraz prevailed. It is the first time since Djokovic took on Federer here in 2014 and 2015 that two consecutive Wimbledon men’s singles finals have been contested by the same pair of players.
Djokovic secured his place in a 10th Wimbledon final with a 6-4, 7-6 (7-2), 6-4 victory that was more closely fought than a straight-sets scoreline would suggest. Lorenzo Musetti, the 22-year-old from Italy, put up a fine effort and should believe with his grass-court skills that he can go on to win the title here in future years.
Experience was, of course, a factor in this semi-final, but Djokovic was also simply too strong for his young opponent. At the age of 37, he remains incredibly consistent across all facets of his game, and his physical conditioning defies belief when you consider that he underwent surgery on his right knee on June 5.
There were some boos for Djokovic from the crowd afterwards but this was merely a misunderstanding rather than any deliberate heckling. After converting match point, Djokovic pretended to play a violin with his racket in a nod to his six-year-old daughter, Tara, who is learning to play the instrument. Some spectators thought it was directed at them and booed in response, which Djokovic lightheartedly encouraged with his hands. There was no lingering resentment as he later walked off the court to loud cheers.
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Now, Djokovic has another chance to move ahead of Margaret Court’s total of 24 grand-slam singles titles and equal Federer’s all-time record of eight Wimbledon men’s singles titles. Alcaraz, who already has three majors under his belt at the age of 21, is the slight favourite with the bookmakers, but it also feels as if Djokovic has nicely paced his progress through this tournament for a crescendo at its conclusion.
“Carlos is deservedly one of the greatest 21-year-olds we have ever seen in this sport,” Djokovic said. “We are going to see a lot more of him in the future, no doubt. He’s going to win many more grand-slams but hopefully maybe not in two days. Maybe when I retire in 15 years. Jokes aside, he already beat me here last year. I don’t expect anything less than a huge battle on the court. He’s as complete a player as they come. It’s going to take the best of my abilities on the court overall to beat him on Sunday.”
As if Djokovic does not have enough records to his name, he claimed another yesterday merely by taking part in the match. The 15-year age gap between Djokovic and Musetti was the largest in a Wimbledon semi-final in the open era (1968 onwards).
Despite his veteran status, there were two key factors in Djokovic’s favour before the contest. He had spent only ten hours and six minutes on the court this fortnight after receiving a walkover in the quarter-finals, while Musetti had posted a total duration of 15 hours and 53 minutes. Djokovic also had a 5-1 lead in the head-to-head record, although he was taken to five sets in their previous meeting, in the third round of last month’s French Open.
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The rhythmic nature of Djokovic’s groundstrokes made for a nice match-up against Musetti’s flair on the one-handed backhand. Entertaining baseline exchanges took place in the early stages before Djokovic got his nose in front with a break for 4-2. There was a brief dip in Djokovic’s level of play when he failed to serve out the set at 5-3, 40-15 up, but he quickly recovered to break the Musetti serve in the next game.
Musetti dusted off the disappointment to break in the first game of the second set, but he failed to maintain his advantage and was pulled back to 3-3. The odds in the tie-break were stacked in Djokovic’s favour, as he had won eight of his past nine here at the All England Club going into this match — and he comfortably took the first of four set points at 6-2 with a confident overhead smash. The scale of the task facing Musetti at this stage was made clear through an even more incredible statistic: Djokovic had lost once on the 90 occasions throughout this career that he had been two sets up: against Austria’s Jürgen Melzer in the quarter-finals of the 2010 French Open.
A break for 1-0 in the third set made it even more inevitable that Djokovic was not going to suffer a second defeat from this position. Although he had to save a tense break point on serve at 5-4, he closed out the win to secure his place in a 37th grand-slam final on Sunday.
“Wimbledon has always been a childhood dream for me,” Djokovic said. “I was a seven-year-old boy in Serbia watching the bombs fly over my head [a reference to the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999] and dreaming of being on the most important court in the world, constructing the Wimbledon trophy out of any material I had in the room.
“It has been an incredible journey and I try not to take it for granted every time I find myself on this unique court. Obviously during the match it’s business time, trying to do our work and outplay your opponent. I’m obviously very satisfied, pleased and happy to be in another final, but I don’t want to stop here. Hopefully I get my hands on that trophy on Sunday.”
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Alcaraz expects ‘war’ but predicts a good Sunday for Spain
A snapshot of just how much the Wimbledon crowd adore Carlos Alcaraz came when, during his on-court interview after reaching his second successive final at the Championships, he said that Sunday would be “a really good day for Spanish people as well” (Alyson Rudd writes). His national team are in the final of the Euros and the crowd’s first instinct was to whoop. Only when they remembered that England were also in the final did they start their good-natured booing.
“I didn’t say Spain is going to win,” he added, smiling, but really his English fans did not mind either way. Alcaraz lapped it up.
The 21-year-old loves to entertain whether that be teasing the fans, regaling how awful he is at golf or reaching walloped cross-court volleys to deliver an inch-perfect passing shot. The stats underline the fun of it all. He hit 55 winners, 24 more than Daniil Medvedev, but also made 13 more unforced errors.
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It was all good family fun, with one sour moment. Medvedev, hopeful of serving out for the first set, thought he had retrieved a drop shot but Eva Asderaki-Moore, the umpire, decreed that the ball had bounced twice and called it as game for Alcaraz while the Russian thought the point was still alive.
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His short tirade resulted in the umpire summoning the supervisor and tournament referee to the court, at which juncture it looked ominous for the No 5 seed but he received only a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“I said something in Russian, not unpleasant, but not over the line,” Medvedev said. “So I got a code for it.”
He did admit, however, that he recalled the same umpire, during a match at Roland Garros, had also called a double bounce against him. “So I had this in my mind,” he said. “I thought, again, against me.”
Medvedev added that if there could be a review system for bounces it would avoid the uncertainty and therefore controversy.
Some competitors might have unravelled but he was calm and clinical in the first-set tie-break, winning it 7-1.
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Alcaraz broke for a 3-1 lead in the second set with a phenomenal passing shot off a Medvedev volley. At last he had the aura of the defending champion. His timing improved immeasurably. He improvised with panache and even though he double-faulted twice when serving for the set, prevailed.
The next set began in scintillating fashion with an Alcaraz “tweener” after he was lobbed to keep the point alive. Serving with a 4-3 lead the Spaniard let the umpire know he had failed to stop the ball bouncing twice, which perhaps underlined how it is the player who normally knows best what has happened in such moments. With Medvedev serving to stay in the set, Alcaraz tapped at rather than smashed an easy lofted ball and netted it. It was an odd moment and he put his head in his hands to convey that he too had no idea why he made such a peculiar choice that helped his opponent to hold.
“Sometimes, as I say, it’s disaster,” Alcaraz said. “But, yeah, it helps me a lot to relax, smile, that I’m having fun on the court. Yeah, sometimes it’s difficult to do the simple shots.”
Still, Alcaraz sealed the third set somewhat fatalistically. All anyone could see was that he was improving with each passing minute.
Medvedev’s middle name might as well be “defence” given his game is built around it but he clearly needed to find a new, aggressive level. He tried to expand his repertoire but Alcaraz made him look more amateur magician than Houdini. A lovely drop shot led to the defending champion passing him at the net. Medvedev, contesting his ninth grand-slam semi-final, could do little in the face of sheer brilliance.
Another Alcaraz “tweener” lit up proceedings in the fifth game. Medvedev was broken to trail 4-3 in spite of impressive agility at the net. As match point loomed, the two-times Wimbledon semi-finalist used up his last challenge. He knew it would not change anything but he had run out of ways to counter Alcaraz with his racket.
There will be a new kind of pressure on Alcaraz in the final and not just to ensure his match finishes in time to allow Spaniards to be able to recover and have a break before tuning into the Euros final. As defending champion, more is expected of him but he says he has tried to forget his status during the Championships.
“I try not to think about that I’m the defending champion,” he said. “I just go into every match thinking that obviously I have chances to lose. Every match, it’s a war. The opponent, they are going to put his best tennis to beat you. I am thinking that I have to play my best tennis if I want to keep going.”
Out on court he told the crowd that “I feel like I’m not new any more.” However, no-one is close to being jaded by his captivating performances as he tries to become the ninth man in the open era to retain the Wimbledon crown.
