MELBOURNE
– In time, Carlos Alcaraz should look back and understand that Jan. 21, 2025, marked a before and after in his career as a tennis extraordinaire: it was the cool, breezy Tuesday night in Australia when the end of his innocence against Novak Djokovic came.
If it didn’t, if the match he lost to the Serb in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open didn’t change anything in his career, didn’t make him reflect, the alarm bells would go off in ‘Camp Alcaraz’. It would mean that Alcaraz learned nothing.
Djokovic has long cultivated friendship and camaraderie with Alcaraz to a level he failed to achieve with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. But, in the end, the Serb and the Spaniard are competing for the same thing. There comes a time when camaraderie must give way to other aspects in a fiercely competitive sport.
Alcaraz was a victim of Djokovic’s psychological games, that player who at one moment seems injured and finished and then minutes later runs and stretches like a superman and, finally, wins a match he had lost. It is the case of the 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 at Rod Laver Arena.
John McEnroe said it as the events unfolded: I’ve seen this story before.
What’s new is that this time Djokovic himself admitted that the way he acts during matches disturbs the opponent.
– Was it a hamstring injury?
– DJOKOVIC: Yes.
– Hamstring or groin?
– DJOKOVIC: I won’t go into details, but it’s very similar to what I had a few years ago. In 2023, to be exact. I haven’t had any tests, obviously. I mean, I’ve had tests with the physio when I was taken off the court, when I had the medical time-out. He strapped me up, and then the doctor gave me some medication, some painkillers. They took effect after 20, 30 minutes. It helped me. Then I had to take another dose I think at the beginning of the fourth. Yes, now that it’s cooling down, I can start to feel different things. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow and day by day.
– Carlos said that after he got injured he got distracted and lost a little bit of concentration. Have you noticed that?
– DJOKOVIC: Yeah.
– How do you avoid getting distracted when you see someone on the other side of the net who is injured?
– DJOKOVIC (…): I understand it’s not comfortable to play against someone who you don’t know if he’s going to retire or not. Is he moving? Is he running? What’s going on? I felt he (Alcaraz) was looking more at me than at himself. I was just trying to self-observe what was going on in my body and at the same time focus on every point, every game, and try to hold my serve and put pressure on him. That’s what happened.
Just minutes before, Alcaraz had been sitting in that same chair Djokovic was using. And, without quite saying so, the Spaniard made it clear that he was not happy with some of the Serb’s attitudes during the match. Much less did he accept Djokovic’s assertion that if he had lost the second set he would have retired from the match.
‘In the first set you could already see that he had physical problems, that it was difficult for him to move. And when I won the first set, I was thinking about attacking the second, not to let him breathe and go for it, to see if he lowered the level or gave me more tranquility’.
That was Alcaraz’s plan, but it was not to be.
Simultaneously, a video of the final stretch of the third set was circulating on social networks. Alcaraz was holding his leg and limping. Many interpreted it as a mockery of Djokovic, but the Spaniard explained it differently: ‘It’s a very demanding match that we’ve both pushed to the limit, it’s very rare that things don’t appear’.
‘Everyone saw the problems he had in the second set and then they disappeared and in the end we played a great third and fourth set.’
‘Someone who was thinking about retiring if he had lost the second set wouldn’t have played like that. I’m not going to go into details, but I think that even if I had lost the set I would have fought for it and I would have had to sweat to have won’.
The questions continued, and Alcaraz, without saying it, found a way to say a lot: ‘I’m not going to go into details’.
All indications are that the era of innocence has come to an end.
2 Comments to “Alcaraz and the end of his innocence against Djokovic”
Dr Mr
Sebastian has a bias.
Mickmmm
Wow! What else? Everyone is entitled to express their opinion. And what would be the point of arguing with an expert? Well the point is that experts can have different opinions and this can also be due to personal agenda.
Most of us have experiences when and where sports have lost their purity are they have a close relationship with money and prestige. And yes one has to learn to grow up above innocence. But I feel Alcaraz was beaten fair and square. Both of them played a great match and one, unfortunately, had to loose.