Novak Djokovic lost the 2024 Wimbledon Championships final to Carlos Alcaraz, and former ATP player Pat Cash blamed it on his legs.
The Serbian didn’t play the best match across the board because he was outplayed in every match segment. Alcaraz won the final match in three sets, and he was simply unplayable for the majority of the match.
He served better, moved better, and outhit the 37-year-old in the rallies, so there was nothing Djokovic did better than Alcaraz. The rallies, in particular, were a huge problem because the seven-time champion’s movement wasn’t up to par.
The Spaniard is a fast player, and he moved really well compared to Djokovic, who looked old and slow, and part of that has to do with the knee. He admitted a few days ago that his knee still gives him some problems, mostly around the movement, and it was glaring in the final.
Former player Cash identified his legs as the main thing that cost him the final when discussing the three-set match.
“Alcaraz is not just all about power. He’s super fast of course, he’s putting pressure on Novak to hit the lines. It felt like Novak’s legs weren’t going, maybe all these matches after surgery he didn’t have the complete spring in his step.”
While Djokovic was limited he never gave up. His 21-year-old opponent simply took the match because he played amazingly. His forehand was firing all day and far more consistently than in the previous matches.
“But the power took Novak by surprise, Alcaraz barely missed a forehand when we’ve seen him missing them all tournament really. It’s not what we expected, we were hoping for a great five-set match, but we saw just about perfection on Centre Court from Alcaraz today and that has to be admired.”
“I’ll go away thinking Alcaraz brought his match when it really mattered. It was all round a perfect performance, almost a breath-taking type of tennis he did on the biggest stage there is.”
