Novak Djokovic can’t stop younger, more powerful Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon

Djokovic arrived here weeks ago in a questionable state, not far removed from June 5 surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee and otherwise dealing with what he called the weakest start to a season he has had in years.

But Wimbledon had no magic left for him Sunday. It was all absorbed by the young wizard who stood across the net in the men’s championship match for the second year in a row.

Carlos Alcaraz won his second straight Wimbledon championship and his fourth Grand Slam title with the typical sparks flying from his racket. He produced a highly atypical score line for a battle against Djokovic, prevailing over his off-kilter opponent, 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (7-4), and handing the Serb the second-worst defeat of his career in a Grand Slam final.

Djokovic made no excuses afterward.

“Just overall the way I felt on the court today against him, I was inferior on the court,” he said. “That’s it. He was a better player. He played every single shot better than I did.”

The only more lopsided result in Djokovic’s 13 losses in major finals came at the 2020 French Open, where he fell to Rafael Nadal, 6-0, 6-2, 7-5.

Alcaraz denied his cross-generational rival the ability to make history for the second straight year. The 37-year-old from Serbia was trying to equal Roger Federer’s record eight Wimbledon men’s singles titles and win his 25th Grand Slam title overall. No. 25 would move him ahead of Margaret Court for the most Grand Slam singles titles of all time.

But the 21-year-old Alcaraz also was looking to write new lines in the record book as he continues to cement himself as one of the greatest young men’s champions in history, with the 2022 U.S. Open, 2023 Wimbledon and last month’s French Open titles already on his résumé. He joined Boris Becker and Bjorn Borg as the only players in the Open era, which began in 1968, to win multiple Wimbledon men’s singles titles before 22, and he equaled Becker, Borg and Mats Wilander for the Open era record for Grand Slam singles titles won before that age.

There’s more: Alcaraz is also the second player in the Open era to win his first four Grand Slam finals, following Federer (who won his first seven). He is the sixth man in the Open era to pull off the difficult, condensed transition from clay-court to grass-court tennis and win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year.

Not that all the age-related records matter to Alcaraz. As he was guided through all the logistical post-match stops that a newly minted champion must make at the All England Club, he was told he must know the drill by now. Alcaraz chuckled and said he had forgotten where to go because everything still feels new.

“Well, obviously I’ve seen and I’ve heard all the stats that I am the youngest to win at Roland Garros and Wimbledon the same year, to win whatever. I honestly try not to think about it too much,” Alcaraz said. “Obviously it’s a really great start of my career, but I have to keep going. I have to keep building my path. At the end of my career, I want to sit at the same table as the big guys. That’s my main goal.”

Centre Court was already teeming by the time Djokovic and Alcaraz arrived shortly before the players walked on the court. The crowd rose to greet Catherine, Princess of Wales, with a standing ovation — Sunday was her second public appearance since the announcement in March of her cancer diagnosis. The All England Club’s royal patron since 2016, she followed sister Pippa Middleton and daughter Charlotte to her front-row seat in the Royal Box, giving the crowd a few small waves before taking her seat.

Celebrities including Tom Cruise and Benedict Cumberbatch sat nearby, as did tennis royalty Andre Agassi, Stefan Edberg, Chris Evert, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Stan Smith.

They had come to see history be made, in one way or another. Instead, they watched what seemed at times to be an impostor in Djokovic’s place. He entered Wimbledon facing questions about his knee and owning a paltry 18-6 record this year, having not reached the final of a tournament. But he had dispelled worry about his play with five characteristically straightforward wins here amid positive reports about his physical state.

Yet on Sunday, he looked several steps slow against a competitor 16 years his junior.

The opening game seemed to promise another marathon like the final last year, when Djokovic and Alcaraz battled for 4 hours 42 minutes. It contained seven deuces and 20 points and went on for nearly 14 minutes; it seemed as if both players were yearning to make an opening statement.

Alcaraz won it with a lightning-quick return on a 125-mph serve to break Djokovic, snatching control of the match that he never let slip from his grasp and enlivening a keyed-up crowd that never calmed down.

“I think he was coming out from the blocks ready to battle and ready to play his best level right away,” Djokovic said, “which wasn’t the case last year where I started better, had a comfortable first-set win.”

The match stuck to script after that opener in a way that was nearly uninteresting, if not for the unusual ways in which Djokovic faltered. He served a double fault on break point to give Alcaraz a 5-1 lead in the first set and at times gave up on running down Alcaraz’s signature drop shots. Alcaraz was like a puppeteer, moving Djokovic around the court with masterful tennis. But Djokovic at times looked despondent, shrugging his shoulders at a shot he couldn’t reach or shaking his head and laughing.

The only real drama came when Alcaraz had three match points at 5-4. He flubbed them all, first serving a double fault and then handing Djokovic a break for the first time all day.

He finally did it in the tiebreaker, proving his generational versatility again — the same way he did with his French Open win last month, when he became the first male player to win his first three Grand Slam titles on three different surfaces.

“I don’t know what is my limit. I don’t want to think about it,” Alcaraz said. “I just want to keep enjoying my moment, just to keep dreaming. So let’s see if at the end of my career it’s going to be 25, 30, 15, four [Grand Slam titles]. I don’t know.”