Carlos Alcaraz is on a roll in 2023, improving by leaps and bounds as compared to last year. Winning the Wimbledon 2023 Championships has uplifted his profile around the world, as opponents believe that he has risen from a prodigal talent to a star of the game. Novak Djokovic is one example, who opened up in detail about Carlos Alcaraz’s impact, recently in an interview. Ahead of the US Open 2023, Djokovic acknowledged the Alcaraz threat to his hopes of winning his 24th Grand Slam title, which would be his first in New York City since 2018.
Djokovic was once gracious enough to praise his ‘new’, young rival. He said that the World No.1 is one player who pushes him always to the limit and that brings the best out of him. He believes that in return, he too does the same to him. The case in point being Carlos Alcaraz getting uncharacteristically frustrated while losing some points in the Cincinnati Masters 2023 final.
Carlos Alcaraz ran Novak Djokovic ragged in Cincinnati
Although Novak Djokovic made an exceptional comeback to win the final, there wasn’t much of a difference between him and Carlos Alcaraz. The Spaniard won the first set, 7-5 but Djokovic had to win 2 back-to-back tie-breakers for the title. And Djokovic now does opine that before this, he had never played such a ‘difficult’ best-of-3 final in his career.
Novak Djokovic also made a big claim that winning against Carlos Alcaraz was like winning a Grand Slam for him in Cincinnati. The World No.2 was quoted as saying in a US Open pre-tournament press conference –
“He (Alcaraz’s) always pushing me to the limit. I think I do to him pretty much the same thing. That’s why we produced memorable final. It was one of the best, most exciting, and most difficult finals I was ever part of in best-of-three, no doubt, throughout my career. That’s why I fell on the ground after I won the match because it felt like winning a Grand Slam, to be honest. The amount of exchanges and rallies. It was physically so demanding and grueling that I felt very exhausted for the next few days.
While Novak Djokovic can be lauded for his honesty, such an emotional statement has never been heard from him before. Although he has praised his rivals such as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in the past, to acknowledge that his opponent actually challenged him to get him exhausted is a first. This is also considering that Djokovic is an epitome of crazy fitness levels in the game. But with tennis being a sport of mental skills and strategies, the prospect of facing Carlos Alcaraz in the US Open is definitely on the Serbian’s mind as he is the player to watch out for.
“Carlos Alcaraz is No. 1 in the world. He’s definitely one of the best players in the world the last couple years. Sure, there’s always an eye that follows him from my team, from any other team. I know that the same goes for me probably. We follow each other,” Djokovic continued.
Djokovic opens up about stress and his future
As Novak Djokovic has not won in NYC in 5 years and is now aged 36, the pressure could be on him more than Carlos Alcaraz at the biggest stage of them all. The 23-time Grand Slam champion, perhaps being vulnerable to a huge extent largely due to that final, also revealed that he can’t say much about his near future although his father recently said in public that he could retire within the next 2 years. He also admitted that stress does get to him, but he finds or has his own ways to deal with it.
“Grand Slams are the biggest goals that I have in my career at the moment. I don’t know how many more Slams I’ll have. I’ll still keep going. I don’t have an end in my mind at the moment. I also understand that things are different when you’re 36, so I have to be more appreciative, a bit more I guess present, treating every Grand Slam as maybe your last one in terms of commitment and performance.
“People think that I don’t have any stress or tension. Actually in contrary, I have quite a lot of that. I have to deal with it, manage it.”
Novak Djokovic is on the cusp of regaining the World No.1 ranking back from Carlos Alcaraz, which will mostly take place as long as the Spaniard successfully defends his US Open title. The duo are at 2-2 on head-to-head with Djokovic having also beaten Alcaraz in the French Open semifinals earlier this year.
