Relive how Novak Djokovic won the Australian Open quarterfinal
MELBOURNE, Australia — Novak Djokovic beat Carlos Alcaraz in the Australian Open quarterfinals at Melbourne Park 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 on Tuesday night.
The No. 7 seed prevailed over the No. 3 seed in a fever dream of an encounter, defined by a Djokovic injury, his tactical shift as it healed, and Alcaraz’s endless and ultimately fruitless search for a spark.
After three hours and 37 minutes, Djokovic moves on to the semifinals to play No. 2 seed Alexander Zverev.
The Athletic’s tennis writers, Charlie Eccleshare and Matt Futterman, analyze the match and what it means for the tournament and for tennis.
A ninth game of Alcaraz genius and Djokovic injury
Alcaraz had started the match looking nervous, and was struggling to find his range. He was making errors on the first shot after both his first and second serves, and when Djokovic held his own serve for 4-3, it felt like he just needed to raise his intensity to steal the first set.
Instead. Alcaraz held for 4-4 before Djokovic suffered a triple-whammy in the ninth game. Having chased down a drop shot to go up 15-0 he appeared to hurt himself, wincing and moving gingerly afterwards. Then the thing happened that every Alcaraz opponent dreads: he hit a highlight-reel shot. After an outrageous forehand pass up the line, the Spaniard cupped his hand to his ear and suddenly looked visibly lighter. The third blow 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.
Novak Djokovic injured his left leg in the first set of the match, in the same game that Carlos Alcaraz seized the decisive break. (Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
Djokovic was forced to leave the court for a medical timeout; a couple of minutes after returning he was a set down. In what felt like the blink of an eye, he was suddenly having to play catchup against a player who had only lost one Grand Slam match from a set up. And that was at the Australian Open four years ago in what was his first ever major.
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Novak Djokovic plays Carlos Alcaraz tennis, against Carlos Alcaraz
There wasn’t any chance that Djokovic was going to go away after picking up an injury. He came out for 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 allowing Alcaraz to make errors, as he did in the first twelve games of both sets in the 2024 Paris Olympics gold medal match. That was no longer a possibility once he was playing with an injury.
So he morphed into a first-strike player, just as he did in the tiebreaks in the Olympic final. He went hunting for every serve, ripping from the baseline at his first chance, even serving and sneaking into net whenever he could to finish the point quickly. Points quickly started ending in three or four shots.
Novak Djokovic turned Carlos Alcaraz’s own style against him to win the second set. (Martin Keep / AFP via Getty Images)
Facing 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 whaled away on two forehand returns to get a break point then won the game on the next one. After that it became a test of whether the strategy could keep him in the match long enough to draw even, which would give him time for some combination of adrenaline and medication to kick in. Playing a hyper-aggressive brand of tennis for three sets would be nigh 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 usually loses while buying time, when the pain in his leg began to ease he was able to catch Alcaraz off guard and keep him guessing about which player he was going to be playing from one point to the next.
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How two players used to playing with house money dealt with being the gambler
At the 2024 Laver Cup in Berlin, The Athletic watched a match with eight-time Grand Slam champion Andre Agassi. When analyzing the match in front of him, Agassi kept returning to the idea that tennis players are always seeking to keep the odds of winning in their favor. The best players become like the house at a casino, and turn 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 wins. His opponents might hit the flashier shots, but ultimately they end up losing, because whatever they are doing proves unsustainable.
Against Alcaraz, at this tournament and in the 2024 Wimbledon final against the same opponent, it’s been a surreal experience to see Djokovic thrust into the gambler 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.
Carlos Alcaraz struggled to play on his terms after the fourth set. (Icon Sportswire / Getty Images)
What made the dynamic more interesting was that Alcaraz too was having to alter the way he normally becomes the house. His natural instinct is to be the protagonist and to get on the front foot, even though he is also a great defender. He trusts that his brilliance will be enough to ultimately overwhelm his opponents, because it almost always is.
Djokovic’s approach took him out of his comfort zone, and in the second set he appeared unsure as to what his best route to victory was. He was celebrating hanging in points and drawing errors rather than whipping up the crowd after hitting a winner that had got them off their feet.
His head looked scrambled, and having been dicing with danger on a number of service games, Alcaraz was broken to love and Djokovic leveled the match.
By the start of the third set, Djokovic was moving more freely, giving him the option to play both sides of the equation: house and gambler. He could drag Alcaraz into rallies and bait him into coughing up a spinny shorter ball, or blast off early.
This noticeably flummoxed Alcaraz, who seemed confused about his route to victory. He never entered full highlight-reel mode; his serve, with a new, more fluid motion, couldn’t get him cheap points like earlier in the tournament.
By allaying his natural instincts and playing more conservatively he became the gambler, as so many of Djokovic’s opponents have fooled themselves into doing in the past. This was different — Alcaraz was, at times, playing three different versions of Djokovic at once — but he couldn’t reverse the trend.
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Carlos Alcaraz’s search for a spark
All night long, it seemed like Alcaraz was a spark away from finding himself. Especially in the third set, when he was behind from the start and digging to come back.
He went a break down, but got back on serve in the seventh game. This was it, wasn’t it?
It was more like the opposite of that. Alcaraz committed three successive errors, on a volley, a forehand and a backhand. Djokovic, sensing Alcaraz had zero shot tolerance, went to work. He sucked Alcaraz into a 22-shot rally, then finished it with a looping forehand winner into the Spaniard’s backhand corner, not dissimilar to the one Alexei Popyrin hit against Djokovic at the U.S. Open last summer to send Arthur Ashe into raptures and put Djokovic on notice that he was going home.
Carlos Alcaraz was frequently frustrated by tiny margins of error that accumulated throughout. (Hannah Peters / Getty Images)
After nearly two hours of deadening the stadium to keep the vibes low and to keep Alcaraz disengaged, he put his hand to his ear and revved up the noise.
Then Djokovic fell 0-30 down as he served for the set. Could this be the Alcaraz spark? Nope. Two more Alcaraz errors drew Djokovic even. Time to test the shot tolerance again. A 17-shot rally this time, that ended with Alcaraz whacking a running forehand into the net.
Rattled, and a point away from going down two sets to one, Alcaraz let Djokovic twist him this way and that and even balked on an easy overhead before missing a backhand volley that he shouldn’t have had to hit.
Two games, 10 points, about eight minutes of play. Script flipped.
Matt Futterman Charlie Eccleshare James Hansen
The 33-shot footnote in tennis history
In what was a weird match in so many ways, there was at least an exciting finale.
Alcaraz seemed to belatedly realize that his only route back into the match was to get the atmosphere going. He had searched 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, the Rod Laver Arena finally fizzed with energy. Djokovic raged, well aware of how significant it could be, with both players bent double at the side of the court. Alcaraz was smiling and laughing. Djokovic was fuming.
It felt like the turning point that Alcaraz has shown the tennis world so many times in his career, when he creates a highlight and then rolls downhill. Suddenly he was grinning again, sprinting around the court, almost enjoying himself.
When he held two break points in the next game, the comeback very briefly felt like it might be on.
But back came Djokovic, fending them both off before holding serve. Two games later, he served out the match to render that 33-shot rally ultimately irrelevant.
Charlie Eccleshare
What did Novak Djokovic say after the match?
“I just wish that this match was the final,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview.
“One of them most epic matches I’ve played on this court, on any court.”
“When the medications start to release, I’ll see what the reality is tomorrow morning. Right now I’ll just try to be in the moment and enjoy this victory,” he said of his injury.
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)
