Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz’s tennis rivalry of the mind arrives at the Australian Open

MELBOURNE, Australia — The thing about the circus Novak Djokovic has drummed up around himself at the Australian Open is that it’s all going to end.

The way Djokovic’s mind works, it probably already has. The claim in an interview with GQ that someone poisoned him during his detention in Australia in 2022; the battles with the raucous Australian crowds; the row with Tony Jones, the Australian sportscaster who made “insulting and offensive comments”about him and his Serbian supporters; the wading into anti-government protests in Belgrade; it’s all in a little box in some corner of his brain. Carlos Alcaraz is occupying the rest.

He plays his biggest adversary in tennis other than Jannik Sinner on Tuesday in the quarterfinals. All that other stuff is wasted energy. Let Team Carlitos think he will walk onto the court muddled with distraction if they want.

It’s likely Djokovic is hoping that is exactly what they will do. As he put it Sunday night after he’d dispatched a promising young Czech player in straight sets for a second consecutive match: “There’s a battle that starts before we step out on the court.”

On that occasion, the battle was less with No. 24 seed Jiri Lehecka, who he beat in straight sets and more with Jones, a sports anchor for Channel 9, the broadcaster that conducts on-court interviews at the tournament. Jones was doing a spot from Melbourne Park Friday, overlooking a group of Serbian fans chanting support for Djokovic, when he added his own lyrics: “Novak is overrated… Novak’s a has-been… Novak kick him out.”

The “kick him out” comment appeared to refer to when Djokovic was deported from Australia ahead of the 2022 tournament after the government canceled his visa over his refusal to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Djokovic then declined his interview after beating Lehecka Sunday; Jones apologized Monday morning. The row has sucked up most of the tournament’s oxygen over the past 24 hours.

Djokovic, aged 37 and seeded No. 7, no longer inevitable on the blue courts where he has won more titles than at any other major, has been using his off-court limelight like an extra limb all week. Against Alcaraz, who trails 3-4 in their head-to-head but has won their last two Grand Slam encounters, both of them Wimbledon finals, it won’t be something he can stand on.

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Alcaraz is well familiar with these swirling dramas seven matches into their rivalry. Their matches start as a mind game unlike anything he or nearly anyone else in the sporting world faces. Djokovic’s off-court and on-court existences seem like they are about to spin off track. He’s ranting at his coaches, embroiled in one of his me-against-the-world ruts.

Then he shows up across the net a picture of laser-focused serenity, concentrating on nothing but the task at hand. The player who so often can’t resist the attention that comes with the circus of his own making gets replaced with the steely assassin required to grasp the enormity of the task of taking on Alcaraz.

It’s what Djokovic did at the Paris Olympics last summer when he upset Alcaraz in a match for the ages that lasted two sets and more than three hours. Djokovic’s intensity that day emanated like a physical force that filled the stadium before it exploded into air on the final point when he collapsed to the clay unable to stop his hands from shaking with emotion.

Just as when he played Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, the shenanigans are nowhere in sight.

“Reminds me of my matchups versus Nadal in terms of the intensity and the energy on the court,” Djokovic said.

“Great to watch; not that great to play against.”

Alcaraz grasps the truth of their battles, too, aware that the challenge, as mental as it is physical, can send each of them into paroxysms if they are not careful. A year and a half ago, on the same clay he wept before picking up his silver medal, the monumental task of facing Djokovic sent Alcaraz into a panic attack and full-body cramps in the middle of their French Open semifinal. He used the experience to “find joy in the suffering,” and won the tournament a year later.

“This is not the right player to play in a quarterfinal,” Alcaraz said in his news conference after Jack Draper retired from their match down 7-5, 6-1.

He knows what he has to do. The first task is to play Djokovic rather than his trophy case.

“If I think about everything he has done in tennis, I couldn’t play,” he said.

“I mean, 24 Grand Slams, the most weeks at No. 1. He almost broke every record in tennis. I’m trying not to think about that when I’m in the match.”

He is thinking plenty about his tactics, just as Djokovic is. When both players have been fully fit, their matches have turned on a few points. While Alcaraz vs. Sinner usually turns into a hyper-aggressive computer game, played outside the tramlines and with total disregard for a neutral rally, matches between Alcaraz and Djokovic are fencing bouts fought with double-edged swords.

Alcaraz’s most dangerous shot is his forehand, which would suggest it’s best for Djokovic to stay away from it, but it’s also the most likely shot to break down, especially when he has to hit it on the move. However, that’s when he is most likely to pull off those miracle shots that raise his confidence and send him on a tear of dominance.

Djokovic’s backhand is one of the best in the sport’s history, basically a backboard that he can use to switch from defense to offense from nearly anywhere on the court. But it’s the less stable forehand that he can turn into his cruise missile, firing at angles other players don’t see. Go there at your peril.

“I know my weapons,” Alcaraz said. “I know that if I’m able to play good tennis against him, I’m able to beat him.”

Using those weapons intelligently is often Alcaraz’s biggest challenge. He’s always in his own battle between winning a match and creating a highlight reel. He seems to draw equal pleasure from both. At this year’s tournament, he is leaning into the efficiency that Djokovic has trademarked for 25 years, improving his serve and blasting through matches with just the odd flourish to keep the finger to the ear.

Against Djokovic, that battle can become a devil’s choice. Djokovic has a way of casting a spell on opponents, who convince themselves they have to be beyond perfect and play like a magician to beat him. They try to do too much and descend into a flurry of errors.

Or, they try so hard to play within themselves that they don’t take any chances and end up letting Djokovic joystick them around the court. Tomas Machac, the 23-year-old Czech who beat Djokovic last spring, took turns following both of these routes during the third-round drubbing he endured Friday night.

Alcaraz could use another serving day for the ages, like the one he found in last summer’s Wimbledon final. He consistently cracked first serves around 130mph and hit spots on his first and second balls in a way Djokovic had never seen him do before. He’s doing it more now, using it to propel himself to the front of the court.

He’s perfecting something that a brand might call the Crush and Rush, in which he jumps into the court for a second-serve return, blasts it dead straight and deep and comes in behind it to finish the point, like a brutal version of the Roger Federer SABR; he’s carving short slices and angled passing shots at the ankles of opponents that try to steal the net from him. Djokovic will have visions of that most recent Wimbledon final, in which every foray beyond the service line ended with a ball either at his toes or flying past his waist.

Alcaraz will be having visions of the two forehands Djokovic unleashed in the decisive tiebreak at the Olympics with the gold medal on the line. Djokovic moaned as he put everything he had into each of those balls, knowing that if he didn’t finish off Alcaraz in straight sets, the Spaniard’s young legs were going to give youth the edge over experience.

No male player has played in more Grand Slam quarterfinals, semifinals and finals than Djokovic in the Open Era. He has toppled his nearest rival and probably the best player in the world in a Grand Slam quarterfinal before, too — twice. He beat Nadal in the 2015 and 2021 French Opens, possibly the hardest task in the contemporary history of men’s tennis.

Alcaraz beat Sinner in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in 2022, then went on to win the title, but Sinner had yet to become Sinner and Alcaraz had yet to become Alcaraz. The opportunity to topple the world No. 1 is likely what Alcaraz and Djokovic are playing for unless Tommy Paul or Alexander Zverev can stand in their way. Whoever wins Tuesday will have to decompress, rise again for a semifinal, then figure out how to climb the sport’s current highest mountain.

That would be a good problem for each of them to deal with. For now, they have each other.

(Top photo: Julian Finney / Getty Images)