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Those semis, though. The 1990 FA Cup, Italia 90, Germany 06, World snooker 2020; there are others, but this is the exulted company in which our Friday now sits. Only one, though, the first, could be said to have delivered a final of similar standard.
Some numbers: in five-set matches, Djokokic is … 43-11; Alcaraz is … 15-1. Ridiculous behaviour in both aspects.
Oh, and in matches over 3 hr 45 min, Jannik Sinner is … 0-8.
So who’s going to win? I guess it depends a lot on who's the fitter, but if Alcaraz’s semi-final issue was “only” cramp, you have to favour him. He should be well recovered from that, so the length of the matches might take more out of Djokovic.
On the other hand, if Djokovic serves as well as he can, he’ll be very difficult to stop. Alcaraz doesn’t find it easy against him, and he can expect to be spending plenty of time retrieving from the corners, especially from groundstrokes down the line. But ultimately, Alcaraz’s speed about the court and ability to conjure winners from any position make me lean towards him.
Preamble
Over the 74,301 years he’s been playing tennis, warming to Novak Djokovic hasn’t always been easy. And the man himself knows it, frequently bristling at sleights perceived, imagined and real, his 24 grand slam titles unable to replace the basic need to feel loved.
What we all learn from Djokovic, though – what even Djokovic himself can learn from Djokovic – is how to execute the perennially torturous business of loving yourself. He knows exactly who he is, exactly what he’s worth and exactly what he needs, which is how he comes to be exactly where he is: in yet another major final, his 38th.
To do as he’s done – reaching this stage for the first time in 18 months, aged 38, having outlasted Jannik Sinner, 14 years his junior, in the semi-finals – is an act of self-love barely believable in its intensity. Playing tennis is really, really hard. Practice is repetitive and gruelling, so too the travel, and the mental toll of putting a body and a life through that, with a young family at home and a wider world believing his time has gone – risking defeat for victory, to opponents he would once have devastated – is a lesson in trust and respect, curiosity and hope, a fearless desire to back yourself no matter what. May we all learn it well.
In Carlos Alcaraz, though, he meets an almost-child who somehow knows all of this already, as comfortable in his own soul as anyone roaming the planet. A break down in the final set of his semi, he knew that if he kept being himself, the cosmos would ultimately bend to his will, and even if it didn’t, he’d still be who he is. It’s arguable that no one, ever, in any sport, has kept the scales of nice boy and killer, of playing for fun and for your life, balanced in such glorious equilibrium.
Both players are playing for (yet more) history. If Djokovic wins – and, despite it all, he’ll not get many more opportunities – he goes out alone on 25 majors won, one more than Margaret Court. And if Alcaraz wins – despite it all, even he can’t defeat time – he becomes the youngest man to complete the career grand slam, at 22 years and eight months, three months younger than Don Budge was in 1938. This is about tennis, sure, but more than anything, it’s about everything it takes to exist and thrive as a human being.
Play: 7.30pm local, 8.30am GMT
