Djokovic vs Alcaraz: A test of limits for limitless Serbian star

We have arrived at the business end of the US Open, the final Grand Slam of the year 2025, with the final of the men’s and women’s singles set to take place over the course of the upcoming weekend.

And while the big showdown for the women’s singles championship has already been decided with Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka set to defend her title against home favourite Amanda Anisimova, the men’s singles finalists will be revealed over the course of the next 24 hours, with the semi-finals set to take place on Friday.

The focus, of course, will be on the latest iteration of the inter-generational rivalry between 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic and 2022 US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz, with the winner set to meet either current title holder Jannik Sinner or Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime.

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Djokovic is going strong and is continuing to break records in his late 30s, with his contemporaries Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal having hung up their boots in recent years. And it’s not just the fact that he’s still competing at some of the most prestigious tournaments in the sport, but going as deep as the last four and even the final, that is remarkable.

The Serbian superstar, after all, had fulfilled his dream of winning Olympic gold just last year during the Paris Games, with the medal having eluded him for more than two decades after he turned professional.

Djokovic, however, has not won a Major since he went level with the legendary Margaret Court’s tally of 24 Grand Slams in the US Open two years ago, thanks to the rise of Alcaraz and his peer Jannik Sinner. Since Djokovic’s victory at Flushing Meadows in September 2023, each of the next seven Grand Slams has been won either by the Spaniard or the Italian.

Djokovic leads Alcaraz 5-3 in their head-to-head record since the two, who share an age gap of 16 years, first met in the semi-finals of the 2022 Mutua Madrid Open – which the rising star won 6-7, 7-5, 7-6 en route to winning the clay-court event.

Alcaraz would then win his maiden Grand Slam at the US Open later that year. But it was with his victory over Djokovic in back-to-back Wimbledon finals (2023 and 2024) that he sent a strongly-worded message that Djokovic’s days on top would no longer be taken for granted, even if it wasn’t coming to a screeching halt right away.

Djokovic, however, has won each of his last two meetings with Alcaraz – in the gold medal match of last year’s Paris Olympics as well as in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open earlier this year.

And what truly defines Djokovic’s greatness is the fact that there is no standout favourite in his ninth duel with current world No 2 Alcaraz, against whom he’ll be eyeing a third consecutive victory on the trot.

‘Novak is still driven as well now at this age by these two guys’

“I never forget Andre Agassi saying, when he worked in a very short period with Novak, that Djokovic as a 40-year-old will still probably be competing at the very highest level, because he has a body and a makeup that he had never seen before,” Nick Lester, who had commentated in the first Djokovic-Alcaraz clash, was quoted by the ATP as saying.

The British former right-handed player goes on to add that the emergence of 22-year-old Alcaraz and 24-year-old Sinner, who also occupy the top-two spots on the ATP rankings besides dominating the Grand Slams over the course of the last two years, has given Djokovic the “last bit of fuel” in the twilight of his career.

“I think he has been overtaken by two players that have possibly raised the bar again when we didn’t think that was necessarily possible. But I think in terms of the age gap and the significance of the age gap, it is remarkable, undoubtedly,” Lester continued.

“There’s a part of me that thinks that Novak is still driven as well now at this age by these two guys, and I think we saw that in his press conference afterwards.

“There was that little bit of an edge of ‘Don’t forget me’ still. And I know he’s done everything and I know he’s ticked every box in the sport largely. But I think these two guys now maybe are even giving him that last bit of fuel, possibly in the sport to get after it,” he added.

Djokovic and Alcaraz will be locking horns in the first semi-final on Saturday at 12.30 am IST (Friday 3 pm local time), with the former hoping to inch closer to a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam that has eluded him for more than a year now.