Former ATP player Tim Henman did not hold back when discussing the 2024 Wimbledon Championships final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz.
As a former semi-finalist at SW19, Henman knows really well what it takes to succeed at Wimbledon. In his mind, the match between Alcaraz and Djokovic was very in line with the pre-match predictions.
It was very one-sided, but Henman used an even harsher term — ‘annihilation.’ The first set was certainly a very dominant showing from the young Spaniard, as was the second set.
Only in the third set did Djokovic leave a decent impression, but even in that set, the Serbian never looked close to winning it, eventually losing the match 2-6, 2-6, 6-7(4).
“In all honesty, for 6-2, 6-2, 5-4 [40-0], it was an annihilation. The tone was set in that first service game of Djokovic, it was a 14 or 15-minute game, Alcaraz was able to get that break of serve and then he was just relentless.”
Djokovic was quite open about his loss in the final, as he confirmed that Alcaraz was simply better in every facet of the match. Watching the final, Henman was waiting to see some sort of reaction out of the 37-year-old, but ultimately, nothing came.
He just lost, and it was weird to him because we’re not used to seeing Djokovic lose that way. Even the late rally in the third set saw him still make too many unforced errors, and according to Henman, it was also because of Alcaraz, who didn’t offer his opponent anything to turn the match around.
“He gave Djokovic nothing to get his teeth stuck into. We were just waiting for the reaction, we were waiting for Djokovic to respond and that really only happened late in the third set when, in all honesty, it was just a little bit too late. Djokovic somehow hung on in that third set and got it to a tie-break, but it was just about one man.”
