When Novak Djokovic, already a rare bird due to his longevity (36), won his first masters title, Carlos Alcaraz was five years old.
Many more came.
Alcaraz spent part of his childhood looking at the television, watching the fierce fight between Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, the holy trinity of tennis, watching how the Serbian took over five other titles in the Masters Cup, the eight o'clock tournament. best rackets of the year.
Today, Djokovic has as many masters trophies as Roger Federer. One more, he already this Sunday in the final against Jannik Sinner, and he will also have this record, another record.
The unbearable weight of history, that's what they call it.
(And in the Pala Alpitour box his children watch him).
Alcaraz (20), still a teenager in his debut in the masters trophy, says that he does not plan to surrender to the weight of history. He doesn't want to do it now, just as he hadn't done it four months ago, when he was challenging for – and snatching – the Serbian crown at Wimbledon.
Alcaraz's tennis moves away from orthodoxy, nothing to do with the festival of first serves and long exchanges that the Turin public witnessed five hours earlier, in the Sinner-Medvedev that the Italian won.
Alcaraz, from less to more this week in Turin, displays a tennis of nuances.
He dives in volleys.
Service varies.
If he can, execute a drop shot.
It keeps the opponent stressed, who doesn't know where the Murcian is going to go.
The problem is that, this time, the opponent is Novak Djokovic. And the Serbian moves in a unique dimension. He stretches like a piece of gum. He previews the Murcian's blows. He modifies the strategy depending on the moment. Draw different parabolas when it helps.
Sometimes it points to the T.
Sometimes, at the angle.
Sometimes the ball opens so much that Alcaraz seems about to go off the court.
Djokovic survives the longest rallies, recovering like a teenage athlete would. He always comes out on top. And when Alcaraz puts pressure on the rest, he responds with an ace. And when he finds himself against the ropes, Djokovic executes a passing shot that disorients the Murcian.
There, the Serbian raises his arms and puts his index finger to his temple. He claims the applause of the parish.
The Turinese parish belongs to Sinner, the Italian wonder, the first transalpine to reach the final of the masters (he did so after beating Medvedev), but he also blesses good tennis.
And an Alcaraz-Djokovic is a gift for the senses, possibly the match of the present.
“I knew it would be a duel of enormous intensity. Carlos is one of the most complete players I have faced. He is very dynamic and fast, but I think I have been in the game from the first moment. This is a huge victory for me,” he will say later, when he is handed the microphone.
(...)
By then, when Djokovic raises his arms, the match has become uphill for Alcaraz. In three quarters of an hour he lost the first set and now he has also lost a serve in the second.
He is against the ropes.
He will continue fighting, but the game is slipping away from him and so is the match. Djokovic is a spider web, an invulnerable tennis player committed to a mission. The Serbian keeps the center of the court and the Murcian runs like a fan: Alcaraz goes from one side of the scene to the other, and cannot find the space for Djokovic, he cannot achieve it no matter how much he continues to throw dizzying forehands and parallel backhands .
Coming across such a display of tennis, a display like that of Djokovic and his 36 years of age, seems inconceivable.
