How Carlos Alcaraz defeated Novak Djokovic at the 2022 Madrid Masters
We've broken down Carlos Alcaraz's semifinal win over Novak Djokovic in Madrid to determine just how much hype the Spaniard should be receiving after his epic performance.
So about Carlos Alcaraz’s 2022…
Five titles.
Two Masters 1000s.
Five finals, five victories.
11 wins vs Top 10 players.
World #6.
Youngest player ever to win the Madrid Masters.
Youngest player since ATP was created to beat three top-5 players in the same tournament.
How’s your year going?
If there was any doubt of Alcaraz’s arrival before the Madrid Masters started, last week dispelled it. He became the only teenager to defeat Rafael Nadal on clay and the youngest player to defeat a world #1 in 17 years after beating Novak Djokovic in the semifinals.
Whilst Alcaraz is 100% here to stay, his win over Rafa Nadal didn’t feel like an absolute passing of the torch moment. The conditions of Madrid suit the youngster more than the vet, Rafa looked a little lacklustre having come back from injury (10 winners to Alcaraz’s 35) and the match to-and-fro-ed under very odd circumstances.
His win over Novak however…
Whilst we’ll avoid the term changing of the guard, I’d like to devote this piece to why this match was so significant for Carlitos.
Madrid Masters Semifinal: Carlos Alcaraz defeats Novak Djokovic 6-7 (5) 7-5 7-6 (5)
Starting from around halfway through the second set, Alcaraz started to find his full range.
The fact he was able to keep the match incredibly tight not playing at his best is praise-worthy enough against Djokovic (Alcaraz playing below par and still pushing his opponent is likely going to be a recurring theme over the years) but as Alcaraz started to put more returns in the court, his confidence grew, so to did his ability to cover his serve and…
1. Carlos Made Novak Uncomfortable
Here’s how we know Djokovic felt uncomfortable.
Djokovic often relies on his reactionary skills to neutralise the pace of an incoming serve.
Against Alcaraz, this skill wasn’t always required.
In the deuce court, admittedly Alcaraz spread the court nicely with his first-serve but he hit only one of his 23 second-serves wide to the Djokovic forehand. Though it was a predictable serve, Alcaraz won a respectable 48% of his second-serves in the deuce court.
In the ad court, Alcaraz directed his serve wide 79% of the time (on the second-serve, he hit only two serves in a different direction!). Despite repeatedly going for the obvious kicker out wide (on both serves!), Alcaraz won a whopping 73% of his service points on this side.
Just take a look at few of these backhand returns from Novak.
Though the conditions in Madrid combined with the lethality of Alcaraz’s kick-serve were a perfect match, the threat of the next Alcaraz shot also played its part in putting Novak under constant pressure on return - whether it was one of Alcaraz’s 33 forehand winners/forced errors, one of his 11 trips to the net (he won all 11), one of his 20 drop-shots (15/20 won)...
You get the idea. It’s not every day a player is able to make Novak uncomfortable on return if he knows what’s coming (I don’t want to talk about the bigger picture of the match today, I’m just setting you up for something more specific).
With the fact Novak felt uncomfortable in mind…
2. Carlos Made Novak Raise His Level
Novak was undoubtedly on the ropes and, as so many great players have forced from him over the years, his level undoubtedly shot through the roof in the third set.
He couldn’t find a way to break Alcaraz’s serve after the first set and he was being troubled in his own service games - Djokovic had his back against the wall and was forced to play fantastically under pressure over and over again.
We saw the spot-serving that has assisted Djokovic over the latter half of his career...
... in an attempt to stifle the unflappable Alcaraz baseline game, we saw net approaches (similar to Rafa’s tactics in beating him at Indian Wells)...
... and, perhaps unexpectedly, we even saw Djokovic rely on his greatest weakness.
Improvements to Djokovic’s game over the last five years that came good in the most important moments against Alcaraz, plays we wouldn't always expect him to pull off.
Against any other up-and-comer, I’d expect curtains in the face of this level of clutch-ery.
But the teenager stayed with him throughout…
3. Carlos Kept Up
As we’re coming to expect, Carlitos has a variety of options to trouble anyone (at least in quicker conditions) under seemingly any amount of pressure.
We saw the Alcaraz favourite, the extremely-difficult-to-counter kick-serve out wide and forehand inside-in combo...
... we saw the well-disguised Alcaraz drop-shot come to the fore in the tightest of moments...
... I promise I'm going somewhere with this.
Before we dive into my final point, here’s what we know so far.
Once Alcaraz found his range on return, his base level of play forced Djokovic to find another gear.
Djokovic started to play brilliantly under pressure, using expected and unexpected plays to find a way through his service games in the third set.
Alcaraz continued to execute plays he was comfortable with to maintain his success on serve.
Alcaraz’s base level alone was enough to keep up with a wired-in Djokovic.
Which brings me onto my final point…
4. Carlos Is Comfortable Taking On The Uncomfortable
Into a deciding set tiebreak we went.
Out of all the active players that have played at least 15 deciding set tiebreaks, Novak has the second-best winning percentage at 71% (this was before losing to Alcaraz at 20 wins to 8 losses1).
From 2011 onwards, only three opponents had defeated him in a match-tiebreak: Rafael Nadal, Dominic Thiem (twice) and John Isner.
Why so few? Djokovic always comes into a match tiebreak with one thing in mind - don’t miss2.
Whilst Rafa’s win was a bit of an outlier in its one-sided-ness, both Thiem and Isner had had to face the same wall on the other side of the net and were forced into finding something against their normal run of play to beat Djokovic.
It’s not just being aggressive that cuts it against Novak in a deciding set tiebreak - it’s being aggressive with something unexpected.
Which brings me onto Carlos.
For me, these two points alone justify all the hype Alcaraz has been getting.
His base level had been good enough to force something better out of Djokovic but, rather than continuing to rely solely on his tried and tested patterns of play in thee crunch moment of the match, Alcaraz respected and recognised Djokovic enough to go for something special...
... and (of course) he delivered.
The significance of those two points can’t be understated - Carlos Alcaraz is comfortable taking on the uncomfortable.
By the time match point came around, the youngster had more than earned himself his favourite one-two punch.
Vamos Carlitos! 🇪🇸
#1 is Borna Coric at 17-4 (81%)! There are others that have played less than 15 with a better record than Novak too: Pouille 10-2 (83%), Fritz 11-3 (81%), Evans 10-3 (77%), Nishioka 8-3 (73%).
The 2019 Wimbledon final was famous for Roger Federer pretty much outplaying Djokovic throughout the match but losing all three tiebreaks, Djokovic’s unforced error count remaining stagnant in these moments whilst Federer’s grew exponentially.