Carlos Alcaraz gets physical in US Open semifinal win over "gassed" Novak Djokovic

NEW YORK—“It’s just the physicality of it, you know,” Novak Djokovic said when he was asked to explain his 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-1 loss to Carlos Alcaraz on Friday, and why he has fallen in four straight semifinals at the majors this year.

“I ran out of gas after the second set,” the 38-year-old said. “I think I had enough energy to battle him and to keep up with his rhythm for two sets. After that I was gassed out, and he kept going.”

“Best-of-five makes it very, very difficult for me…particularly if it’s like the end stages of a Grand Slam.”

The ninth edition Djokovic-Alcaraz was the most one-sided in Alcaraz’s favor so far. It was less like one of their typical epics, and more like a typical early-round contest between a top player and a lower-ranked challenger.

Djokovic knows the pattern well from his own matches at this year’s Open. In the first set, his opponent, nervous about facing the Great Man, donates an early break, and Djokovic rides it to a first-set win. In the second set, the opponent settles down and gives him a run for his money. If Djokovic wins that set, the match is over; if he doesn’t, he has to work much harder to close it out. His victories in New York over Learner Tien, Cam Norrie, and Taylor Fritz all fit this model.

So it was a sign of the times on Friday that Djokovic—maybe for the first time in his career—was forced to play the role that his lesser-known opponents usually play. And it was Carlos Alcaraz, the higher seed and the younger player, who played the role of the Great Man.

Djokovic probably wasn’t suffering from nerves or lack of belief at the start. Yet he wasn’t ready for the moment or the opponent. He was broken in the opening game, and looked a step slow compared to Alcaraz out of the gate. The Spaniard was blistering the ball, and Djokovic was struggling to catch up to it. When he tried to vary things by serving and volleying, it didn’t work. Alcaraz rode that early moment of vulnerability to a 6-4 first-set win.

I ran out of gas after the second set. I think I had enough energy to battle him and to keep up with his rhythm for two sets. After that I was gassed out, and he kept going. Novak Djokovic

In the second set, Djokovic settled down, heard the cheers from the Ashe crowd, and tried to make his stand. He timed his returns better, finished points at net, and brought the fans to their feet with a brilliant get and lob. When he broke Alcaraz for 2-0, it looked like we had match.

Instead, the challenge from the older man just inspired the younger one to find some brilliance of his own. With Djokovic serving at 3-1, 30-30, he moved forward and took control of a point—until Alcaraz stole it back with a flick forehand pass that Djokovic could only applaud. A minute later, his break was gone.

Soon they reached the second-set tiebreaker—an Alcaraz win meant the match would end quickly; a Djokovic win might inject enough energy from the crowd to keep him going. Serving at 3-4, Djokovic created an opening and had a look at a down-the-line forehand. If he’d made it, Ashe would have exploded. Instead, the ball hit the tape and fell back, and the fans stayed in their seats. Cameras caught Jimmy Connors, who played a semifinal here as a 39-year-old in 1991, banging his hand down in frustration. He knew Djokovic would only get so many chances.

It would be his last, it turned out. Alcaraz ended the set with two service winners, broke early in the third, and sprinted to the finish line. He would finish with twice as many winners as Djokovic, 31 to 15.

“It wasn’t the best level of the tournament for me,” Alcaraz said. [But I kept] a good level from the beginning until the last point. I served pretty well today, which I thought was really important.”

“I tried to play a really physical match.”

Djokovic probably won’t enjoy hearing that Alcaraz didn’t play his best, and that he only served “pretty well.” But that last comment, that he wanted to make the match “really physical,” shows that Alcaraz knows what matters against an older opponent like Djokovic. And he knows that, at 22, he always has that advantage in his back pocket.

Just as important, he knows he has won 44 of 46, hasn’t dropped a set in New York, and is into his second US Open final.