Djokovic's great lesson to Alcaraz: The key to Nole's victory over Carlos

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Many had written off Novak Djokovic at the end of 2024 when he finished the year without any Grand Slam titles and skipped the entire latter part of the season to rest. Not many believed in him for this 2025, but surely many of those who doubted him, after his victory today against Carlos Alcaraz at the Australian Open, now know the mistake they made in thinking that the Belgrade native was going to start his farewell tour in Australia.

Because Djokovic's performance today was so good that it seems difficult to envision when the end of his career will come. Right now, seeing that he still dominates opponents who are 16 years younger than him, as is the case with Carlos, it is impossible to think that his time is running out or that he will decide to retire in the near future. Just as he said a year ago, he will only retire when the young players "kick his butt." He has beaten Carlos in their last two encounters. Now he just has to do the same with Sinner.

But before reaching that final, which is still far away, it is time to analyze what happened today in these quarter-finals. And Carlos will go home knowing that he has two major subjects to study urgently. One of them is a subject he has known for a while that he needs to work on, and today it was shown not only that he hasn't worked on it but also that, if he doesn't do it soon, he runs the serious risk of opponents learning it and constantly exploiting it.

First set dominated by the Spaniard

Carlos finished the first set with the feeling that he had everything under control. After a rocky start, he felt he was dominating Nole from the baseline, that his serve was effective, and that his forehand was doing a lot of damage. Moreover, on top of that, the Serbian seemed injured and ended the set barely able to move. Physically, his face showed relaxation and confidence. It even seemed like Djokovic might retire. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Change of plan, no reaction from Carlos

Where Fritz and many others fell in the past, letting a vulnerable Djokovic slip away, Carlos fell again. He allowed Nole to get into the match. He didn't pressure him. He lost his game plan and began focusing more on his opponent than on his own game. Right at the beginning of the second set, Alcaraz wouldn't know at that moment, but that's where he started losing the match.

Djokovic had one thing very clear. With the thigh issue, he wouldn't be able to last long. He needed to shorten the points and be more aggressive. Thus, he decided to step up his return game. He positioned himself almost on the baseline and kept attacking Carlos by hitting returns low at his feet and targeting the backhand side. A master class from Nole on how to return even a washing machine to land it on Alcaraz's service spot.

To this, Djokovic added a special punch to his groundstrokes, completely dismantling Carlos, who watched helplessly as the match slipped away from him. In his lack of reaction to Djokovic's aggressive play, the Serbian began to thrive and wouldn't hesitate to keep pressing the accelerator.

He nearly -literally- destroyed Alcaraz with the Spanish player's second serves. The Murcian ended the second set winning only two points on his second serve. This marked the beginning of the end for him. Djokovic wouldn't stop attacking his second serves, while Carlos either didn't know how or couldn't do the same.

Dip in Alcaraz's serve

From the third set onwards, Djokovic returned almost all of Alcaraz's serves, causing damage with the second serves but also getting the better of the first serves on the line. The Murcian struggled on each of his serves, while he couldn't inflict any damage on Nole's serve. Djokovic exposed Alcaraz's major weakness: the forehand return.

We discussed it in the pre-match analysis, how Novak discovered in the Cincinnati final how Carlos suffers on the forehand return. Despite it being his best shot, something happens with Carlos' forehand return. In that final, he made more than twenty errors with this shot. Seeing the end of the match approaching, Djokovic began targeting his forehand relentlessly. Especially in pressure moments, at 30-all, deuce, or facing a break point.

It was his safety shot. Any problems? Serve to Alcaraz's forehand, problem solved. Towards the end of the fourth set, he targeted Carlos' forehand up to nine times in a row. In total, he directed the return to the forehand 67% of the time on the deuce side in that fourth set, and 73% on the ad side. Carlos knew what Djokovic was going to do, but still couldn't return as he would have liked.

Besides the fact that in the final part of the match Djokovic took control in the backhand-to-backhand exchanges, or that he made only 2 errors in that last set, Carlos' inability to return on Djokovic's serve, coupled with his lack of power on his serves, led to his defeat despite improving significantly from the baseline towards the end and forcing Djokovic to display his best array of shots.

So, Alcaraz leaves with a report card where he is asked to work on that forehand return. He has been exposed in front of everyone, and his rivals have taken note. He has realized that on hard courts, he is still inferior to several of his competitors and that if he wants to win here one day, he will have to address many of these issue

Detailed analysis: Why Djokovic beat Alcaraz at the Australian Open

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, La gran lección de Djokovic a Alcaraz: la gran clave de la victoria de Nole sobre Carlos