What a match though right? The oldest player in the tournament vs one of the youngest in the tournament in the final of a Slam which is one of the most important tennis tournaments in the world every year.
Before the match even began we already were guaranteed that history was going to be made. Either the oldest person to ever win a major was going to be hoisting the trophy, or the youngest person to ever do a "Grand Slam" was going to be hoisting it.
For me, I wanted Novak to win, but in the end, even before it started, I was ok with Alcaraz winning it as well.
srcI was late to the watch party because it started at a horrible hour for us here in the States, but when I arrived, Djokovic was just wrapping up the first set, dominating and emerging victorious with a score of 6-2.
I'm a bit of a strange person about these kind of things, or superstitious, but once I arrived and sat down and opened a very inappropriate time of day beer, Carlos started taking control and Novak started making a lot of unforced errors.
The rallies were just incredible and both men were returning shots that most mortals wouldn't even be able to track with their eyes in real time.
srcThe amount of times that both men stretched to the limit of their reach to barely return a shot was too many to count and for most of us and probably most professional tennis players, the return, if you were lucky enough to get it, would have been wildly out of control, but not for these two... far from it.
After Djokovic won the first set 6-2, it really looked like he had control but I dunno what was going on in Alcaraz's head, but he figure him out or something by set number two as the tides turned in exactly the same fashion with Alcaraz winning the second set 6-2.
Nole bot a bit of a start in set 3 but things fell apart for him as things carried on. Set number 4 was one of the most exciting sets of tennis I have ever seen and when Carlos Alcaraz won it 7-5 and then fell on the ground to celebrate something that had never been done before, there wasn't anyone anywhere that wasn't happy for the guy, and this includes Djokovic himself.
To me and my friends, we considered it a huge victory that Nole made it past Musetti due to an injury, then to go on and defeat the most hated man in tennis today in Jannik Sinner after going down a set was just ecstasy for us. In our minds, the guy had already done so much more than anyone though he could do, and he got the nay-sayers to eat their words. I bet they are all going to be really quiet for at least a couple of months because that was a showcase of absolute class and excellence on both guys' part.
There was no rackets getting destroyed, no shouting at the umpires, no complaining about the crowd, no fake bathroom breaks or demands that the air con get turned up... Just two guys that are accepting the conditions and doing everything in their power to emerge victorious.
And in the meantime all of us got a spectacle that was really something to behold.
Someone in our group looked up a stat online and found out that the cheapest tickets to attend this match live was $5000. So I don't think I will be attending any tennis matches of this caliber ever in my life.
srcDjokovic gave him nothing for free... the man who is nearly half the age of the other had to work very hard for this win and I look forward to seeing him continue down this path of excellence and hopefully eliminate Jannik Sinner from every single major for at least a few years. Sheesh I can't stand that guy.