Carlos Alcaraz produced a stunning effort to defeat Novak Djokovic in a Wimbledon Championships final once more, winning his fourth Grand Slam trophy overall.
Alcaraz entered this final as the nominal favorite because, in these circumstances, the 37-year-old Serbian was in clear disadvantage. Outside of his knee surgery, Djokovic simply didn’t look as sharp this week as he looked before. He was winning matches comfortably but realistically had a much easier path to the final compared to the Spaniard.
At age 21, Alcaraz is now a four-time Grand Slam champion, and he won his fourth in London. The third came in Paris weeks ago, and he added to the legacy in this match against the 24-time major winner.
Beating Djokovic in the final is certainly amazing, but the match itself wasn’t as amazing as last year simply because it wasn’t even close. It feels weird, given it’s the court where the 37-year-old dominated so much, but that was the reality on the court.
Last year’s battle was exciting and close, with Alcaraz barely winning, but this was a comfortable win, which was seemingly never in doubt after a few minutes of play. Alcaraz bounced around the court full of energy, while Djokovic looked quite frankly old.
He didn’t seem capable of holding his own against the Spaniard outside of a few select rallies. For the most part, the Serbian struggled to prevent being totally overrun. The first set was a comfortable 6-2 win for Alcaraz, and not much changed in the second set as he won it 6-2 as well.
The difference between those two sets was relatively minor. Alcaraz served really well in the first but not as great in the second. Djokovic served well in both sets but not good enough to save himself.
However, in the rallies, the seven-time champion simply couldn’t match Alcaraz at all. He got outhit in the first set, and the same happened in the second set.
To win, Djokovic needed to be supreme on his serve, and he couldn’t do that in this match. The final set was by far the best Djokovic played in this final, as he was able to both serve well and hit the ball pretty well in the rallies. Still, it wasn’t enough.
In the ninth game, Alcaraz produced a great effort to break his opponent’s serve. However, despite leading 40-love in the following game and having three championship points, the 21-year-old couldn’t convert either of those, losing his serve and having to fight for the match win late in the third set.
Eventually, he overpowered his opponent in the tie-break of the third set and won the final match 6-2, 6-2, 7-6(4) to claim his second Wimbledon title.
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