Andy Roddick discussed the 2024 Wimbledon Championships final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz on the latest episode of his podcast and praised the Serbian’s effort.
Djokovic produced a minor miracle by showing up in London ready to play tennis. Having had knee surgery less than a month before, his chances of playing were slim, but he worked hard and ultimately got to a stage where he could play.
His level was satisfactory and increased with every match, but ultimately, it wasn’t good enough to overcome Alcaraz, who bested him in three sets in the final. Speaking about the final, former ATP professional Roddick noted that the knee looked relatively healthy but not enough.
He’s sure that it was about as healthy as it could be at that point, but one thing that the 37-year-old really missed, evident in the final, was repetitions.
“There’s a difference between a knee being healthy. I think it’s as healthy as it can possibly be considering he had surgery five weeks ago. Something I had mentioned going into the tournament is, there’s a difference between being healthy but you also have to build up reps.”
Djokovic is arguably the best tennis player of all time, but even he can’t really flip a switch overnight. He needs reps like everybody else, and at the end of the day, the lack of playtime hurt him in that final.
“It doesn’t matter how great you are at anything that you do. You can have the best guitarist on Earth and if they don’t play guitar for five weeks they’re not going to be as good as if they’re in the middle of a world tour and they’re doing it every night and getting the timing, getting the rhythm, getting the placement.”
Overall, though, Roddick was impressed with Djokovic’s performance in the final, which is just a testament to his greatness.
“So I think Novak has been good enough and it’s just a testament to his greatness to get through to this final. The knee was fine, the movement looked good but to be rushed, he didn’t have any time to train physically before this tournament.”
