Wimbledon 2024: Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz gave Novak Djokovic absolutely no breathing space
Last Updated: 09.27 PM, Jul 14, 2024
One man was looking to make history and get to a record eighth title at The Championship, another determined to stop that and stay on track to defending his title. The excitement around the Wimbledon men’s singles final was quite something as 37-year-old Novak Djokovic challenged defending champion Carlos Alcaraz in a repeat of their final from only a year ago.
While the men went the distance in a hard-fought 5-set match last year, Alcaraz had different plans this time around. He came with a game plan – to give Djokovic absolutely no wiggle room whatsoever. And it worked for him because this was the day on which the latter could barely get anything right.
Djokovic shots that would have ideally been winners against any other player got a response from Alcaraz, no matter where it landed – he was there at top speed and then turned it around in his favour. And that is exactly how he raced to a quick 2 set lead (6-2 6-2). Alcaraz it seemed was set on closing it out in straight sets.
In the third set, though, Djokovic fared slightly better, and was broken only when they were tied at 4 games all, which meant that Alcaraz was now serving for the match. He raced to 40-0, but then saw Djokovic winning the next 6 points to get his first break in the match. But was that going to be enough to slow-down the Alcaraz juggernaut?
Not really, because all that Djokovic managed was to take the set into a tie-breaker, which Alcaraz won comfortably, making him 2-time Wimbledon champion.
This win makes Alcaraz only the fourth player ever in the Open Era to have 4 Grand Slam titles aged only 21. He is also only the 6th man to win the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back.