Regardless of what happens in Sunday’s Wimbledon final, Novak Djokovic will leave with a lead in the all-time Grand Slam race that seems permanently secure.
He’s going to retire with the edge over Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer no matter what. Everyone else is so far behind that the numbers seem irrelevant. Does it really matter whether Djokovic has 24 or 25 majors as he starts the inevitable wind-down of his career at age 37?
It might — only because of the guy who will be standing across the net from Djokovic on Sunday.
Carlos Alcaraz heads into the Wimbledon final with the opportunity to make a lot of history. He could become the ninth man in the Open era to go back-to-back at the All-England Club and just the sixth to complete the French Open-Wimbledon double.
But if Alcaraz wins his fourth Grand Slam title Sunday, Djokovic may well need to worry about whether he has enough breathing room.
Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Four is still a very long way from 24. So many things can happen in a tennis career, from injury to lack of motivation to another worthy rival coming along and taking his share of titles, that the odds are long of anyone catching Djokovic.
But based on what we’ve already seen from Alcaraz, and what almost certainly lies ahead in his development, it’s not crazy to think that he has a real shot to reach the 20s. If we are peering another decade and a half into the future when Alcaraz is the same age Djokovic is now, would it be a big surprise if we remember this Wimbledon final as a pivotal moment in their Grand Slam rivalry?
Here’s the easy case for why Djokovic should feel at least a little bit threatened by the prospect of Alcaraz one day breaking his most important record.
* Not only has Alcaraz won three Slams at age 21, he’s done it on three different surfaces. He will not end up like Pete Sampras, who never figured out clay. He isn’t going to be like Ivan Lendl, who couldn’t get over the finish line on grass. Barring injury, Alcaraz is going to contend at every Grand Slam for the foreseeable future, and the fact he’s struggled (relatively speaking) at the Australian Open to this point is mostly just bad/unlucky timing. There’s little doubt he’s going to eventually win there to complete the career Slam.
* Nobody among the top group of younger players is in Alcaraz’s weight class. Yes, his rivalry with 22-year-old Jannik Sinner has produced some great matches, and Sinner has won his share of their matches (Alcaraz leads the head-to-head 5-4). But Sinner, who won the Australian Open this year, has not shown that he is as consistently good at physically surviving tough matches in the five-set format. Alcaraz has already blown past the likes of Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev and the rest. They can beat Alcaraz on the right day, but on the whole they are not really a threat to him. Only Djokovic and Sinner are, and Djokovic isn’t going to be around much longer.
* Alcaraz has already reached the stage where he can win a Grand Slam without playing his best tennis. For everyone else, things have to line up perfectly just to win one. Alcaraz entered the French Open this year with question marks about a forearm injury, played at maybe 80 percent of his capacity with several bad spells during the tournament but won it anyway because he was great in the clutch.
* If Alcaraz averaged 1 1/2 Grand Slam titles a year over the next decade, he’d have 18 by age 31. That doesn’t merely seem well within reach at this point, it might be a conservative estimate of his capability.
* And perhaps the biggest factor in all this: Alcaraz still has a lot of room to get better. His serve should improve. His shot selection can be refined with his experience. His temptation to go for the splashy play rather than the the solid shot, which sometimes gets him in trouble, should mellow out over time. He’ll eventually learn to fight off his dips in focus. As good as Alcaraz is now, he’s not even close to as good as what he should be in his prime.
Though it already seemed like Alcaraz was a generational talent when he made his first Wimbledon final last year, putting his name into the Grand Slam record conversation would have been ridiculous at that point. He only had a US Open title on his résumé and was a significant underdog to Djokovic, whose seven Wimbledon titles trail only Federer’s eight.
When Alcaraz won the match in five sets, it was the first real tectonic shift in tennis’ power structure. Though Djokovic responded by having an incredible fall, including rolling through the US Open, the kids took control of the sport in the first half of 2024 while Djokovic’s health and motivation to physically grind like he used to were suddenly in question, as he played sparingly and poorly from the Australian Open all the way through the spring.
A few weeks ago, it didn’t seem likely Djokovic would get this chance to add a 25th major this summer – or maybe ever when he had to pull out of the French Open quarterfinals with a knee injury.
Djokovic quickly opted for surgery, and the conventional thinking was that he wanted to get healthy, if possible, for the Olympics, which is the only big prize he’s never won. Instead, he felt enough progress to enter Wimbledon, caught a very favorable draw and has used his wealth of experience and canniness on grass to roll into the final without even having to push himself that hard.
At this stage of his career, that might be the formula Djokovic needs to add more Slams. Things broke right for him this time, and the only real test he’ll face is in the final — a match he certainly can win.
But unlike last year, Alcaraz is the favorite this time. He knows how to mentally and physically handle Grand Slam finals, and his top level is at least equal to or maybe even better than Djokovic’s top level in 2024.
Djokovic may have enough in the tank to get a few more Grand Slam titles, but he’s never going to get a better chance than at Wimbledon, on the surface where his physical decline isn’t nearly as much of a factor as it is on hard court or clay.
It’s a real opportunity to put more distance between himself and Alcaraz in the history books. The way things are trending, Djokovic may need it down the road.
