This is not the end of an era but the beginning of a new one. Alcaraz vs Djokovic is a mouth-watering all-court rivalry for ages.
There’s this Michael Jordan story from the time when the ageing Magic Johnson was still the unquestionable GOAT of basketball. It is from the pre-1992 Olympics camp, where the Dream Team was split into two for a practice game. What was to be a routine morning workout turned out to be a clash of big egos where no one gave an inch. Jordan was on roll that day, his electric play reminded Johnson that he wasn’t quite unbeatable.
After the game, as Johnson sat with other legend Larry Bird on the side, Jordan swaggered towards the two legends. “There’s a new sheriff in the town,” he said with a sneaky smile. With a throaty laugh, Johnson told Bird: “He isn’t lying”.
It is said to be basketball’s epic moment of power shift, like it was at Wimbledon on Sunday when Carlos Alcaraz beat the tennis unrivaled GOAT, the 23-Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic. The 20-year-old from the Spanish village of El Palmar, known for its tall palm trees, made a grand announcement from the famous grass court that a new sheriff was in town and he wasn’t lying.
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Power, ambition
There were those who saw a 17-year-old Boris Becker in him. Like was the case in the 1985 final, this too was an exhibition of brutal power and audacious ambition of the youth defying odds. Others at Wimbledon were reminded of the epic change-of-guard fourth-round match in 2001 when Roger Federer had defeated Pete Sampras.
However, this was different. Becker was a 17-year-old rookie, Alcaraz entered Wimbledon as World No.1 and defending US Open. Federer had it easy since Sampras was well past his prime. Alcaraz was facing the best tennis player at the peak of prowess. This is not the end of an era but the beginning of a new one. This was the start of an all-court rivalry.
Men’s tennis had been waiting for real prodigies to emerge for a long time. Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Federer had called out many challengers and made them look like imposters. But Wimbledon 2023 will be remembered for the Grand Slam when tennis discovered a young player who was the ‘real deal’ who had it in him to shake the foundations of the old firm.
Alcaraz had won the US Open but it was a tournament that Djokovic had missed. Late in the evening, in the presence of commoners and royalty, Alcaraz won a Slam that had no asterisk. It was the kind of a new dawn the suits at the ATP had been praying for years. Djokovic after the loss would sneak in a line that would be music to the game’s marketers. “I thought you would be tough to beat on clay and hard court, but you showed that you are tough to beat on grass too,” he said.
Since the time Federer retired and Nadal was on the cusp of calling it quits, there was a feeling that Djokovic would have a free run. This epic five-setter proved that, regardless of the surface, there would always be Alcaraz in the draw who would have all the answers.
On Sunday, every trick that the Serb tried, Alcaraz had an answer. Djokovic had a flying start but he couldn’t pull away. He tried to slow down the pace of the match by taking his time between shots but it didn’t break the youngsters rhythm. The old hand upped the pace of his shots and went for the lines that too didn’t work. Alcaraz matched him shot by shot, volley by volley, serve by serve.
At the end of the third set when Djokovic took a long break, there was a feeling that he would return rejuvenated and run away with the match. He had done that before against the best in the world. He almost pulled off by winning the fourth set. However, in the 5th, Alcaraz showed he wasn’t the kind to crack under pressure. He didn’t have a brain fade,
Even under pressure, he pummelled accurate ground strokes that were fierce and deep. His serve remained unshakeable. Once in the final moments of the decisive set, he played a delectable drop shot and followed it up with a lob that Djokovic saw sail over his head. The match was far from over at that but it was the watershed moment when the defending champion realised that the new sheriff had checked in.
First published on: 17-07-2023 at 01:16 IST
