Novak Djokovic beats Carlos Alcaraz at Australian Open to show physical and tactical strength

Relive how Novak Djokovic won the Australian Open quarter-finals

MELBOURNE, Australia – Novak Djokovic beat Carlos Alcaraz in the Australian Open quarter-finals at Melbourne Park 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 on Tuesday night.

Seed no. 7 won over no. 3 seeds in a fever dream of a meeting defined by a Djokovic injury, his tactical shifts as it healed and Alcaraz’s endless and ultimately fruitless search for a spark.

After three hours and 37 minutes, Djokovic advances to the semifinals to play no. 2 seed Alexander Zverev.

Athletics tennis writers Charlie Eccleshare and Matt Futterman analyze the match and what it means for the tournament and for tennis.

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A ninth match with Alcaraz’s genius and Djokovic’s injury

Alcaraz had started the fight looking nervous and struggling to find his range. He fouled the first shot on both his first and second serves, and when Djokovic held his own serve for 4-3, it felt like he just had to up the intensity to steal the first set.

Instead. Alcaraz held for 4-4 before Djokovic suffered a triple blow in the ninth game. After chasing down a drop shot to go up 15-0, he appeared to injure himself, hunched over and moved cautiously afterward. Then something happened that every Alcaraz opponent fears: he hit a highlight reel shot. After an outrageous forehand pass up the line, the Spaniard put his hand to his ear and suddenly looked visibly lighter. The third stroke felt inevitable for Djokovic and sure enough, a wide forehand conceded the break of serve that was coming and gave Alcaraz the chance to serve out the set.

Djokovic was forced off the court for a medical timeout; a few minutes after returning home he was seated. In what felt like an instant, he suddenly had to play catch-up against a player who had only lost one Grand Slam match from a set-up. And it was at the Australian Open four years ago in what was his first ever major.

Matt Futterman Charlie Eccleshare James Hansen

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Novak Djokovic plays Carlos Alcaraz tennis, against Carlos Alcaraz

There was no chance that Djokovic would disappear after suffering an injury. He came out to the second set a completely different player than the one who started the match.

In the first set, he was all about conservatism, turning points into physical contests and letting Alcaraz make mistakes, as he did in the first twelve games of both sets in the 2024 Paris Olympic gold medal match. That was no longer an option when he played with an injury.

So he turned into a first-strike player, just as he did in tiebreaks in the Olympic final. He hunted every serve, ripping from the baseline at his first chance, serving himself and sneaking into the net when he could to end the point quickly. Points quickly began to end in three or four shots.

With his own gifts turned against him, Alcaraz was caught off guard and lost his serve in the second game of the second set as Djokovic wandered away on two forehand returns to earn a break point and then won the match in the next. After that, it became a test of whether the strategy could keep him in the game long enough to play even, which would give him time for a combination of adrenaline and medication to kick in. Playing a hyper-aggressive brand of tennis in three sets would be nearly impossible, especially against the master of the art.

It worked even better than he could have imagined. Not only did he steal the set he normally loses while buying time as the pain in his leg began to ease, he was able to catch Alcaraz off guard and keep him guessing as to which player to play from one point to the next. .

Matt Futterman

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How two players used to play with house money handled being a gambler

At the Laver Cup 2024 in Berlin, Athletics saw a match with eight-time Grand Slam champion Andre Agassi. Analyzing the match before him, Agassi kept coming back to the idea that tennis players always seek to keep the odds of winning in their favor. The best players become like the house in a casino, turning their opponents into gamblers who start with things stacked against them.

Throughout his career, Djokovic has been the ultimate in applying this logic, the epitome of the house always winning. His opponents may hit the flashier shots, but in the end they end up losing because whatever they do turns out to be unsustainable.

Against Alcaraz, at this tournament and in the 2024 Wimbledon final against the same opponent, it has been a surreal experience to watch Djokovic throw himself into the gambler’s role, desperately hoping his number might come up. Injuries have played a part in this on both occasions, but it’s also a reality of being 37: Not everything can be played on your terms.

What made the dynamic more interesting was that Alcaraz also had to change the way he is usually housed. His natural instinct is to be the protagonist and get on the front foot, although he is also a great defender. He trusts that his brilliance will be enough to eventually overwhelm his opponents, because it almost always is.

Djokovic’s approach took him out of his comfort zone and in the second set he seemed unsure of what his best path to victory was. He celebrated hanging on for points and drawing fouls instead of whipping up the crowd after hitting a winner that had put them away.

His head looked contorted and after being diced with danger on a number of service games, Alcaraz was crushed and Djokovic leveled the match.

At the start of the third set, Djokovic moved more freely, which gave him the opportunity to play on both sides of the equation: house and gambler. He could draw Alcaraz into rallies and coax him into coughing up a spinny shorter ball, or blast away early.

This noticeably unsettled Alcaraz, who seemed confused about his path to victory. He never went into full highlight-reel mode; his serve, with a new, more fluid movement, could not earn him cheap points as earlier in the tournament.

By tempering his natural instincts and playing more conservatively, he became the gambler that so many of Djokovic’s opponents have fooled themselves into in the past. This was different – Alcaraz at times played three different versions of Djokovic at once – but he couldn’t turn the tide.

Charlie Eccleshare

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Carlos Alcaraz’s search for a spark

All night long, it seemed Alcaraz was one spark away from finding himself. Especially in the third set, when he was behind from the start and dug to come back.

He went for a break but came back on serve in the seventh game. It was, wasn’t it?

It was more the opposite of that. Alcaraz committed three consecutive errors, on a volley, a forehand and a backhand. Djokovic, sensing that Alcaraz had zero shot tolerance, went to work. He sucked Alcaraz into a 22-shot rally, finishing it with a looping forehand winner into the Spaniard’s backhand corner, not unlike the one Alexei Popyrin hit against Djokovic at the US Open last summer to send Arthur Ashe rapt and put Djokovic on sense that he was going home.

After almost two hours of silencing the stadium to keep the atmosphere low and to keep Alcaraz disengaged, he put his hand to his ear and turned up the noise.

Then Djokovic fell 0-30 down when he served for the set. Could this be the Alcaraz spark? No. Two more Alcaraz errors pulled Djokovic level. Time to test the shot tolerance again. A 17-shot rally this time that ended with Alcaraz pounding a running forehand into the net.

Rattled and one point away from going down two sets to one, Alcaraz let Djokovic twist him this way and that, even bending with an easy overhead before missing a backhand volley he shouldn’t have needed to beat.

Two games, 10 points, about eight minutes of play. Script flipped.

Matt Futterman Charlie Eccleshare James Hansen

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The 33-shot footnote in tennis history

In what was a strange match in so many ways, at least there was an exciting finale.

Alcaraz seemed to realize too late that his only way back into the fight was to get the mood going. He had been searching for that spark all night, and finally got the chance in the fourth set.

When he won a 33-shot rally to save a break point that would have left him 5-2 down and out of the match, Rod Laver Arena was finally flowing with energy. Djokovic raged, well aware of how significant it could be, with both players bent double at the side of the court. Alcaraz smiled and laughed. Djokovic was smoking hot.

It felt like the turning point Alcaraz has shown the tennis world so many times in his career, when he creates a high and then rolls downhill. Suddenly he laughed again, sprinted around the field and almost enjoyed himself.

When he held two break points in the next game, the comeback felt very short, as if it could be underway.

But back came Djokovic and fended off both of them before holding serve. Two games later, he served out the game to make the 33-shot rally ultimately irrelevant.

Charlie Eccleshare

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What did Novak Djokovic say after the match?

“I just wish this match was the final,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview.

“One of the most epic matches I’ve played on this course, on any course.”

“When the medication starts to release, I’ll see what the reality is tomorrow morning. Right now, I’m just going to try to be in the moment and enjoy this win,” he said of his injury.

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What did Carlos Alcaraz say after the match?

We’ll bring you his news conference reflections as they come in.

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(Top photo: Fred Lee/Getty Images)