Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic, despite the infancy of their shared time on tour, have already forged one of the most enthralling rivalries in recent memory.
After all, it pits the young upstart against the king, seeking to take the crown and usher in a new era of the sport.
Unwilling to just allow himself to sit back though, the 37-year-old has been on a mission for years now, and that culminated in this summer’s Olympics in Paris.
He knew what had to be done to finish off his trophy cabinet, and standing in the way was his rival once again.
Fortunately for him, on this the biggest occasion of his career in recent times, Novak Djokovic was unstoppable.
Carlos Alcaraz reflects on Olympics loss to Novak Djokovic
Speaking to the press, the Spaniard could not look ahead to Cincinnati and the US Open without first combing over the remarkable summer he has enjoyed.
After all, kickstarting it by winning Roland Garros, the 21-year-old then went on to defend his Wimbledon title before reaching the final of the 2024 Paris Olympics, losing only to Djokovic.
It is unsurprisingly the latter event which still haunts him given how close he was to winning the gold medal, and also given he had brushed aside the legendary Serbian with remarkable ease just a month earlier in SW19.
But, in what will likely be his final Olympics, Djokovic was not to be denied, and Carlos Alcaraz has since looked back at what happened that day in order to progress.
He noted: ‘I always want to be better. I always think I can do it better. I had a great summer, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, silver at the Olympics. But I wanted the gold medal.
‘After matches, if I win or I lose, I like to find the bad things that I did and try to be better, try not to make the same mistakes in the next matches. That’s what I saw in the final in Paris, that I couldn’t deal with the situations as good as I wanted. That’s what I was thinking after the match, being hard on myself.’
Novak Djokovic earned the Olympics Gold Medal
It is quite remarkable that, after all the pressure that he heaped upon himself in the face of such media scrutiny, Djokovic managed to come out and win the Olympics earlier this month.
After all, his desperate desire to claim gold was well-documented, and so, with it unlikely that a 41-year-old Djokovic could have won the next games, this was seen as his final chance.
Doing what he does at his age alone is remarkable, but to have also done it with a knee brace on all summer only adds to his legend, overcoming unrelenting adversity to achieve greatness.
He had earned that title, after years of pining for it, and nothing was going to get in his way on the day of the final.
Now, whether he retires tomorrow or after another few years, he can do so happy in the knowledge that he completed tennis.
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