A couple of years ago a mathematics question became popular that appeared in the university entrance exam in Murcia that had … to do with the number of titles that Carlos Alcaraz had won in 2022 and 2023. The El Palmar tennis player reacted to it on social networks. This Sunday, the Murcian will try to solve another mathematical problem, much older and more difficult to solve: squaring the circle.
The world number 1 will jump to the Rod Laver Arena to face, starting at 9:30 a.m., Novak Djokovic in the final of the Australian Open, the only Grand Slam that eludes him (Eurosport and HBO Max). At 22 years old, the Spaniard has won the US Open twice (2022 and 2025), two more at Wimbledon (2023 and 2024) and two more at Roland Garros (2024 and 2025), but he has always resisted the hard surface of Melbourne.
His relationship with the tournament began in 2021 when, being number 141 in the ATP ranking, he defeated the Dutch Botic Van de Zandschulp in the first round, before giving up against the Swede Mikael Ymer. That was his first participation in a big event. And also the beginning of an epic on the tennis courts that has had its only mole in the lands of Oceania as far as ‘majors’ are concerned. He returned to Melbourne the following year, having already climbed to the thirty-first position in the world rankings, and reached the third round, where he was stopped by the Italian Matteo Berrettini after a very tough battle that was resolved in the tie-break of the fifth set. Before, he had left the Chilean Alejandro Tabilo and the Serbian Dusan Lajovic by the wayside.
An injury prevented Alcaraz from participating in the Australian Open in 2023, a tournament to which he returned in 2024 with his hopes through the roof and already holding a leading status within the circuit. He progressed to the quarterfinals, but there the German Alexander Zverev stood in his way, curtailing his hopes by winning 6-1, 6-3, 6-7 (2) and 6-4. And a year later it was Djokovic who stopped him, also in the quarterfinals, by defeating him in four sets: 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.
The last frontier
Australia is the last frontier to conquer for Alcaraz and this year he only has one obstacle ahead, albeit a gigantic one. After beating Zverev in an epic duel lasting 5 hours and 27 minutes in which he had to overcome the cramps and vomiting he suffered midway through the match to end up beating the German 6-4, 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 6-7 (4) and 7-5, the Spaniard will try to cross the Rubicon by going over Djokovic to get rid of the thorn he has. nailed in Melbourne and become the ninth tennis player capable of boasting of having all four Grand Slam tournaments in his hands, with the added merit of being the earliest to achieve it.
The list of chosen ones was opened by the Englishman Fred Perry and the American Don Budge in the 1930s. The baton was taken over by Australians Rod Laver and Roy Emerson in the 1960s. And, already in the Open Era, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic joined the select club. Only three of those illustrious athletes – Agassi, Nadal and Djokovic – achieved the ‘Golden Slam’, a name that includes the four Grand Slams and the men’s tournament of the Olympic Games.
It will be the third time that Alcaraz and Djokovic meet in the final of a Grand Slam. The Spaniard won the previous two, both on the grass at Wimbledon in 2023 and 2024. They say there are no two without three, but Djokovic has a gigantic stimulus before him in his quest to deny Carlitos glory. And if a victory this Sunday would give the Murcian his seventh Grand Slam title, a victory would give the Serbian his twenty-fifth.
The twenty-four he has, two more than Nadal and four more than Federer, make him the greatest male tennis player of all time. Margaret Court also won twenty-four, eleven of which were raised in her native Australia. At 38 years old, with a notorious love-hate relationship with the oceanic country and ten trophies raised in the Rod Laver Arena, the Balkan player fights against time and against a monumental Alcaraz to raise a bar that is increasingly unattainable. The generational battle is served.
