Could Carlos Alcaraz become tennis’s all-time greatest? Novak Djokovic believes he possesses the potential to reach the pinnacle, drawing parallels to the skills of the Big Three. Roger Federer, while partly concurring with Djokovic, also suggests that it might be wise to temper expectations for Alcaraz.
Carlos Alcaraz has won two Grand Slams already (2022 US Open and 2023 Wimbledon) and he is still only 20 years old. But to even catch Federer in the number of majors won, Alcaraz still has to win 18 more Grand Slams. To catch Rafael Nadal, Alcaraz has to win 20 more, and who knows how many more he will need to win to catch up to Novak Djokovic because the Serb already has 24 but appears capable of winning several more.
Still, Novak Djokovic says Alcaraz has parts of his game that remind him of Federer, Nadal, and himself. In other words, Alcaraz is a combination of arguably the three best tennis players ever.
Novak Djokovic feels Carlos Alcaraz is a mix of Roger Feder, Rafael Nadal, and himself
Alcaraz hasn’t exactly played as well lately as people have been accustomed to. He hasn’t won a tournament since Wimbledon (where he defeated Djokovic in five sets) and he recently lost in the fourth round of the Rolex Shanghai Masters. This didn’t shock Federer all that much, however.
According to what Federer told ATP Tennis Radio recently, “He’s going to lose some time to time, like here in Shanghai, but he’s doing fantastic. He’s got a great game and obviously an unbelievable future ahead of him. Of course, with Rafa, Novak, myself, and Murray, we all expect every generation to produce their best tennis every single week for some reason, but it’s hard to do that.”
And Federer is correct, of course. Carlos Alcaraz isn’t going to win every tournament he participates in, and he’s set the bar so high so early in his career because he has won more tournaments than most would expect. Of course, one reason Alcaraz will struggle to win every tournament he’s in is because he will likely still have to play Novak Djokovic a few times in the future.
In other Djokovic news as it relates to Alcaraz, because of Alcaraz’s early loss in Shanghai, Djokovic only needs to play as well as Alcaraz in Djokovic’s final tournaments of 2023 – the Rolex Paris Masters and the Nitto ATP Finals – to finish as the year-end number 1 on the ATP tour and get his numbers of weeks spent at No. 1 to 400 and counting. 400 weeks at No. 1. If you didn’t already think Djokovic was the best ever, just let that number sink in for a minute.
