If last year’s Wimbledon final was a majority decision by comparison, this one was an early-round knockout.
In a rematch of the 2023 championship tilt, Carlos Alcaraz once again got the best of Novak Djokovic on Sunday afternoon in London. Whereas Alcaraz survived a five-set thriller 12 months ago, the encore saw him destroy Djokovic 6-2, 6-2, 7-6(4) for the Spaniard’s fourth Grand Slam title. Alcaraz, who also won the U.S. Open in 2022 and the French Open five weeks ago, triumphed in a relatively swift two hours and 27 minutes.
“It is a great feeling,” he said during his post-match press conference. “It was a great match for me. Obviously Novak didn’t play his best the first two sets–a lot of mistakes. I made the most of that.”
He did it emphatically, too. Alcaraz broke serve in the opening game of the match–which featured seven deuces, five break points, and three games points–and lost only four games in the entirety of the first two sets. The 21-year-old did not get broken a single time in those sets while facing just one break point.
In fact, Alcaraz never got broken until the match was on his racket. At 5-4 in the third, the world No. 3 raced to the brink of victory with a 40-0 lead. Suddenly, though, he tightened up and squandered all three championship points–including one with a double-fault and another with missed swinging forehand volley on the heels of a blistering first serve that Djokovic did well simply to get back in play. The 37-year-old Serb managed to break back, but Alcaraz steadied himself and had little trouble rolling through the ensuing tiebreaker.
“Huge congrats to Carlos,” Djokovic praised. “(He) deserved this win today; he was the better player from the beginning ’til the end. I tried to fight my way in the third and come back, saving three match points, extending the match a little bit. But I guess it was inevitable for him to win today because he was just coming out on the court with a better quality tennis. It’s as simple as it is.
“(Last year) I lost in an epic five-set match [in which] we went toe-to-toe. This year it was nothing like that. It was all about him. He was the dominant force on the court.”
Although the rankings don’t reflect it at the moment, Alcaraz has been the dominant force on tour this spring and summer. After being surpassed by a red-hot Jannik Sinner last fall and earlier this season, Alcaraz has reasserted himself as the current best player in the world. He is now just the sixth man to accomplish the French Open-Wimbledon double in the same year.
“It is a great feeling even thinking about being French Open winner and Wimbledon champion the same year, that few players [have done] before,” Alcaraz noted. “It’s unbelievable.
“I’ve seen and I’ve heard all the stats that I am the youngest to win at Roland Garros and Wimbledon the same year. Obviously it’s a really great start of my career, but I have to keep going. I have to keep building my path. At the end of my career, I want to sit at the same table as the big guys. That’s my main goal. That’s my dream right now. It doesn’t matter if I already won four Grand Slams at the age of 21. If [I don’t] keep going, it doesn’t matter. I really want to keep going. I will try to keep winning and end my career with a lot of them.”
