The tennis rivalry between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz and a fever dream at the Australian Open

MELBOURNE, Australia It should have been another classic. The men's singles match at the Australian Open had everyone circled. The curtain on the 2025 tennis season. The latest chapter of the generational duel between the greatest player of this era and the next.

It ended up being a journey through the madness of tennis, as Novak Djokovic limped into Carlos Alcaraz's brain with one leg and scrambled it from the inside, sending the 21-year-old playing through so many versions of himself it was impossible to count them .

This was already a tennis rivalry of the mind. Djokovic and Alcaraz, magnetic showmen and fixtures of tennis highlight compilations, enter a state of total focus when they play against each other. It's the only way they can beat each other. The challenge, both mental and physical, can send both into fits if they are not careful. From Tuesday night to Wednesday morning here at Rod Laver Arena, their bodies and brains were sucked into a fever dream.

After eight matches of the kind of tennis the world has come to expect from these two stars, Djokovic sprinted for a drop shot and lunged to get the ball back, but fell just short. He crouched for a few more moments, a knowing grimace fit for a poker table crossing his face. He's ready something to his left leg. He walked to his bench to dry off and then limped back to the baseline.

Of all nights, his 37-year-old body had failed him again, just as it did last year at the French Open, when he won on cruise control before tearing the meniscus in his right knee.

Djokovic couldn't possibly have known how that small adjustment would wreak havoc on Alcaraz in a way that nothing else would. Or maybe.

He knew what to do. He's been here before; here, in the same court; with muscle tears and strains and the need to find a way out of the mess.

Slow down. Wait for the break. Get treatment, take some painkillers and wait for them to work, then start climbing out of the hole. He had done it, but against the likes of Taylor Fritz and Francisco Cerundolo; good tennis players, but not at the level of Alcaraz.

To do it against him would take something special and strange.

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Something special and strange, like Djokovic switching from a guy who came ready to grind all night to someone who started playing first-strike tennis, sneaking up to the net or just closing his eyes and tearing at the lines; the kind of tennis that Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have used to renovate the court over the past twelve months, changing the sport so much that players must develop or even fundamentally change the skills they have honed for years in order to compete.

Djokovic had spent the first set attacking Alcaraz, playing conservatively as the Spaniard hit winners and dictated the match.

In the match in which Djokovic injured himself, Alcaraz retreated from his second serve position, right on the baseline. He stepped back, sparked the rally with a deep ball and then punished his opponent's weakness. When he was given a second-serve look in the second set, he was back on the baseline, rushing to make aggressive returns and failing to execute them.

Djokovic, on the other hand, was still alive. As soon as he sensed a dip in Alcaraz's intensity, a hesitation, as he put it, he pounced. Instead of just surviving those moments, he thrived and actually won the set he normally has to forfeit in these situations, when he should have fallen even further behind.

Alcaraz thought he also suddenly had to change from someone who builds his game around gun-slinging to someone who had to prioritize moving Djokovic around the court. He couldn't really do it, at least not for long periods of time, and on second thought he knew he shouldn't have tried.

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Within the tennis rivalry of Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz

It seems like it will be easier, but in your mind you are thinking about not making mistakes, Alcaraz said after it was over.

I didn't push him in the second set, he also said.

Djokovic could see the gears whirring.

I felt that he was looking more at me than at himself. “I tried to hold my serve and put pressure on him,” he said at his press conference.

Djokovic even said that this encounter, which lasted three hours and 37 minutes and ended 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, was one of the most epic matches I have ever played on this court, on any field.

Novak Djokovic now has a 5-3 record over Carlos Alcaraz. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Except for all the tactical shifts and physical endurance, the unusual and the strange, in reality that was not the case. It was pretty ugly for long stretches, especially in the third set, when Djokovic did his best backboard imitation as his movement returned and Alcaraz melted into goo. He had no idea which version of Djokovic would come his way from one moment to the next.

Tennis players don't do that. They choose a strategy and stick to it until it doesn't work. When that happens, they switch to something else for a while. They don't change 180 degrees every match, let alone every point. Unless they do. Or rather, except when Djokovic decides that's the only thing he can do.

Rod Laver Arena was also flat and the crowd milled around awkwardly, trying to figure out what to cheer for. All of that played into Djokovic's hands, much more than rallying behind his cause. It's best to let Alcaraz, whose game thrives on vibration and electricity, struggle not to fall asleep.

Perhaps the strangest moment came with Alcaraz 2-4 and a break point in the fourth set, at the point of no return.

After a 33-shot rally, both players huddled at the side of the court, the crowd on its feet and Alcaraz laughing, having kept himself in the game. It had the potential to be the defining moment of the match, the point that turned a disorienting preliminary mix-up into the classic match it had promised to be.

It never happened.

Alcaraz raised his level but Djokovic remained calm and held serve twice to win and advance to the semi-finals against Alexander Zverev.

Thirty-three shots wasted in the strangeness of a night that promised to be special.

(Top photo: Patrick Hamilton/SIPA via Associated Press)