Rafael Nadal’s return to the ATP Tour is drawing ever nearer, and the road toward his comeback at the 2024 Brisbane International presented by Evie, which takes place from 31 December to 7 January, included a stop in Kuwait.

Nadal travelled to the Rafa Nadal Academy in Kuwait, which opened in 2020 at the Sheikh Jaber Al-Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah International Tennis Complex. There, he shared a training session with Arthur Fils, the 19-year-old Frenchman who recently reached the title match at the Next Gen ATP Finals presented by NEOM.

“It’s great to be here in Kuwait to train for a few days. Everyone has been so welcoming. Thank you for everything,” wrote the Spaniard on his official social media accounts.

The Mallorcan travelled to Kuwait in search of temperatures and conditions similar to those he will find in a few weeks in the Australian summer.

Nadal, surrounded by his team, shared an image on social media of one of his habitual group activities, a game of ludo with Carlos Moya, Marc Lopez and his physio Rafael Maymo.

The Spaniard, who recently posted a message of cautious excitement about his return, is preparing to compete for the first time since he took to the court on 18 January this year, in the second round of the Australian Open against Mackenzie McDonald.

“I still think what I said in the last press conference, that I do not deserve to end my sports career in a press room.” he said. “I would like to finish in a different way, and I have fought and kept the illusion for that to happen, with doubts, with bad moments, very bad or better moments.”

Jose Higueras, who worked with ATP Tour greats like Pete Sampras, Jim Courier, Roger Federer and Michael Chang during his coaching career, has been named the recipient of the Tim Gullikson Career Coach Award in the 2023 ATP Awards. 

The Spaniard coached Chang to his 1989 Roland Garros title, when the American was 17, and also spent time with Americans Jennifer Capriati and Mary Joe Fernandez.

The 70-year-old Spaniard, who also worked with USTA Player Development, has been selected as the third winner of this award, following in the footsteps of Australians Tony Roche (2019) and Bob Brett (2020). The recipient exemplifies excellence, leadership, respect, and a true love for the sport of tennis and the art of coaching.

Named after the late Tim Gullikson, the award showcases someone who has inspired generations of young players and fellow coaches to grow the sport of tennis.

Higueras, who reached a high of No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings as a player, won 16 ATP singles titles and reached the Roland Garros semi-finals in both 1982 and 1983. He also received the ATP Sportsmanship Award in 1983.

French media outlet L’Équipe has been recognised with the Ron Bookman Media Excellence Award in the 2023 ATP Awards.

“It is a great honour for us, the journalists of L’Équipe, to receive the Ron Bookman Media Excellence Award from the ATP,” L’Équipe said. “Winning the award for the third time, after 1999 and 2010, suggests that the baton is being passed from one generation of journalists to the next.”

Recognised for excellent coverage of tennis on all their platforms (newspaper, magazine, digital, TV), L’Équipe prides themselves in being present on the Tour all year round, boasting a list of writers whose sole focus is tennis reporting: Lucile Alard, Vincet Cognet, Bertrand Lagacherie, Romain Lefebvre, David Loriot, Quentin Moynet, Franck Ramella and Julien Reboullet. Journalists Anne-Sophie Bourdet and Bruno Garay also play a key role for the magazine.

“Our commitment is to covering tennis as well as possible and be consistent in an attempt to write about everything that makes this sport so complex, from the game itself such as technique, tactical evolution, and history to the human side of the game,” L’Equipe said. “We appreciate the fact that we are receiving this award collectively, because it is a real ‘Equipe’ [team] effort throughout each season.”

Long-time friends Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev have been voted as the Fans’ Favourite doubles team in the 2023 ATP Awards. The duo captured its maiden team title at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Madrid and were semi-finalists in Beijing.

“I just want to say a big thanks to you guys for voting for me and Karen,” said Rublev. “For us it means a lot. Thank you so much one more time. See you soon, happy new year.”

 

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Khachanov and Rublev had lively fan support throughout the season, including in Madrid when they earned Match Tie-break wins in four of their five matches en route to the trophy. Known for the powerful baseline games, Khachanov and Rublev also won fans’ hearts over with constant energy and frequent smiles on the doubles court.

Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov share a laugh at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome.” />
^{Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov share a laugh at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Rome. Credit: Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour}
Khachanov and Rublev also met twice this season on the singles court. Rublev won their third-round match in Monte-Carlo en route to his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title, but three weeks later Khachanov earned revenge in the Madrid fourth round. 

Winners for the 2023 ATP Awards will be announced throughout the coming week. 

The Pepperstone ATP Rankings provide a perfect way to measure the size of upsets in the men’s game. For many of the matches selected here, the shocks were off the charts.

As we continue our look back at the 2023 season, ATPTour.com counts down the five most seismic upsets of the year. On Tuesday we’ll look at the biggest upsets at the Grand Slams.

5) Toronto R1: Diallo d. Evans 7-6(4), 7-5
Canada’s Gabriel Diallo, then 21, roared to his first ATP Tour win on home soil by beating one of the game’s most in-form players.

Two days prior, Daniel Evans lifted the Washington title behind a run of 10 consecutive sets won. But in Toronto, he had his hands full just to keep Diallo from running away with the match.

After the Canadian claimed a tight opening set, he led by a break on three separate occasions in the second. A double fault ended his first attempt to serve out the match, but despite seeing Evans level at 5-5 from 3-5 down, Diallo regrouped to win the next two games.

“Words cannot really describe how I feel right now,” the then-World No. 141 said after the dramatic two-hour victory. “I hope that everyone in this planet can feel what I’m feeling right now, this level of happiness.”

Gabriel Diallo” />
Photo: Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

4) Madrid R2: Arnaldi d. Ruud 6-3, 6-4
Next Gen alum Matteo Arnaldi picked up his first Top 10 win the hard way by beating then-World No. 4 Casper Ruud on the Norwegian’s favourite surface. After saving a match point to earn his first ATP Masters 1000 win against Benoit Paire in the Madrid opening round, the qualifier swung freely to produce what was a landmark win in multiple ways.

In addition to being his best career win by measure of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, the result also lifted the Italian into the Top 100 for the first time. He continued to soar up the rankings in the following months, finishing the year at World No. 44.

Perhaps the most surprising part of Arnaldi’s Madrid upset? After a strong run on the Barcelona clay the week before, he was not feeling comfortable in the altitude of the Spanish capital.

“The ball bounces so high and I didn’t like it at first. I struggled a bit,” he explained. “But today, I don’t know, maybe the stadium, maybe the pressure on him, but I played the best match of my life.”

3) Banja Luka QF: Lajovic d. Djokovic 6-4, 7-6(6)
This all-Serbian battle, played out in front of a “home” crowd in neighbouring Bosina and Herzegovina, proved to be a milestone moment for the then-32-year-old Dusan Lajovic. After winning just four combined games in two previous meetings against Novak Djokovic, Lajovic stunned his countryman at the clay-court ATP 250.

Lajovic fought off 15 of 16 break points against him and saved three set points in the second set tie-break, ultimately clinching victory by winning the final five points of the match from 3/6 in the tie-break. His aggressive play made Djokovic pay for a poor serving day, and he repeatedly found his best tennis in the clutch moments against a man who has built a legendary career by doing exactly that.

“I’m overwhelmed, it is the biggest win of my career,” Lajovic said after earning his first win against a World No. 1. “The emotions are very mixed because I’m playing here in front of the home town and I’m also playing against Nole who is a good friend and he’s a hero of our country. Beating him, it’s something that I didn’t even think is going to be possible, but it happened.”

Lajovic made the most of his victory by going on to win the title in Banja Luka, beating Miomir Kecmanovic in an all-Serbian semi-final and second seed Andrey Rublev in the final.

2) Delray Beach R1: Pecotic d. Sock 4-6, 6-2, 6-2
Matija Pecotic was already one of the most intriguing stories of the season before he met the former No. 8 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. The 33-year-old Croatian, who holds a full-time job in finance, qualified for his ATP Tour debut at his local tournament in South Florida. But it seemed likely his dream run would end against home favourite Jack Sock.

Instead, with his boss in the stands, the then-World No. 784 made even more headlines by recovering from a slow start to decisively beat the American in the final two sets. He hit 30 winners, including 10 aces, to knock off Sock, turning the match around after starting in a 0-4 hole and later fighting off a break point to start the second set.

“I certainly didn’t expect to win, but certainly didn’t come into the match thinking that I’m definitely going to lose,” said Pecotic, who represented Croatia at the inaugural United Cup earlier in the season. “I certainly figured if I could sink my teeth into the match and work on the two or three patterns that I prepared before, that I’m going to have a chance. And then let’s see… if I was going to fall under pressure or not be able to serve it out at some point. But I didn’t and I got the win.”

1) Rome R3: Marozsan d. Alcaraz 6-3, 7-6(4)
Fabian Marozsan produced the biggest shock of the season with an authoritative victory against Carlos Alcaraz. Playing in his first ATP Tour main draw, the flat-hitting Hungarian qualifier played with supreme quality to hand his opponent his third defeat of the season.

Marozsan succeeded by beating Alcaraz at his own game, mixing deep and powerful ground strokes with well-timed drop shots to keep the Spaniard guessing. Just when Alcaraz seemed to find an answer, building a 4/1 lead in the second-set tie-break, Maroszan reclaimed the initiative with his bruising ground game to win the final six points of the match.

“I couldn’t imagine this. It was my dream last night,” said Maroszan, who hit 30 winners to Alcaraz’s 15. “Now it’s true, I am very, very happy about this… I just tried to do something special, maybe winning a few games or a set or something like this, and now I just beat the [World No. 2].”

Then the World No. 135, the Hungarian became the first player outside the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings to beat Alcaraz since 2021, and the eighth player outside the Top 100 to defeat an opponent ranked World No. 1 or No. 2 since 2015.

Later in the season, he earned more ATP Masters 1000 success by reaching the Shanghai quarter-finals, beating Alex de Minaur and Casper Ruud along the way. By the end of October, he hit a career-high Pepperstone ATP Ranking of World No. 61.

Read all stories in our Best Of 2023 review.

During his appearance on CBS’ 60 MINUTES on Sunday evening, Novak Djokovic made clear that the rising stars of the sport are keeping him on his toes aged 36.

“I think the young guys who are very hungry and very inspired to play their best tennis against me is an additional motivation,” Djokovic told reporter Jon Wertheim. “I think they kind of awaken a beast in me.”

That was evident earlier this year when he lost a heartbreaking Wimbledon final against Carlos Alcaraz. The Spanish star has quickly become a big rival for Djokovic, who used that defeat as a source of energy for the rest of the season.

“Yes, absolutely, it was,” Djokovic said. “That pissed me off so much that I needed to win everything on American soil, which I did.”

The Serbian laughed as he made that comment. But his feelings showed in his reaction to the loss on the court. In Cincinnati, Djokovic refused to lose to Alcaraz, saving a championship point en route to winning the longest best-of-three-set final in ATP Tour history (three hours, 49 minutes). He went on to win the US Open, the Rolex Paris Masters and the Nitto ATP Finals.

The 98-time tour-level titlist also provided insight into the mental side of the sport and how closely he pays attention to everything his opponent does, not just during points.

“Even though there is no physical contact in tennis, there’s still a lot of eye contact,” Djokovic said. “When we are changing ends, when we’re sitting on the bench, and then the big screen shows him how he drinks his water. And then I’m looking at him. How is he drinking water? Is he sweating more than usual?

“Is he breathing deeply or not deeply? And then I look how he’s communicating with his team. You have all these different elements that are in play that really affect the performance and the game itself.”

Djokovic said that his mental game is not a gift, but a craft he continuously works on. Despite how calm he looks under pressure, the World No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings explained that is not always the case.

“I might appear maybe locked in,” Djokovic said. “But trust me, there is a storm inside. And the biggest always battle is within, right?”

Djokovic added: “You are a human being. The difference, I guess, between the guys who are able to be biggest champions, and the ones that are struggling to get to the highest level is the ability to not stay in those emotions for too long. So, for me, it’s really relatively short. So as soon as I experience it, I acknowledge it. I maybe, you know, burst. I scream on the court, whatever happens. But then I’m able to bounce back and reset.”

The longest ATP Challenger Tour final in history? The first unranked Challenger champion? France’s record-breaking 27 titles? All of these occured during the 2023 ATP Challenger Tour season, in which 46 different countries hosted a tournament while witnessing the rapid rise of young stars and the resurgence of Tour veterans.

ATPTour.com reviews key facts and figures to remember from the 2023 ATP Challenger Tour season.

Comesana Collects Most Match Wins
Argentine Francisco Comesana tallied a 45-21 Challenger-match record in 2023, edging countryman Facundo Diaz Acosta by one match for the most wins this season. Comesana, 23, was crowned champion in Vicenza and Liberec. On two separate occasions, Comesana went on hot streaks in which he won 12 of 13 matches across three tournaments.

The 22-year-old Diaz Acosta was not far behind with a 44-16 match record. The Buenos Aires native captured four titles (Savannah, Oeiras, Milan, Montevideo) and hit a career-high No. 93 in August after making his Top 100 debut the previous month.

Navone Nails Five Titles
Argentine Mariano Navone was unstoppable during the second half of the year. From 19 June to 12 November, the 22-year-old competed in six Challenger finals, triumphing in five of them: Poznan, Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Buenos Aires and Santa Fe-2.

“In May of last year I was losing in the first round of an M15 and today I have won five Challengers,” Navone said in October. “At that moment it was difficult but to that kid I would tell him to be calm, that good things are going to come.”

Diaz Acosta, Aleksandar Kovacevic, Thiago Seyboth Wild and Alejandro Tabilo all tied for second with four Challenger trophies in 2023.

Teen Titans
At 17 years, eight months, Czech Jakub Mensik won on home soil in Prague to become the youngest Challenger champion of 2023. Mensik was one of 12 teenagers to claim a Challenger title this season. Only three teens earned more than one Challenger title in 2023: Luca Van Assche, Alex Michelsen and Hamad Medjedovic.

Biggest Movers To Top 100
American Alex Michelsen, who earned two ATP Challenger Tour titles this season, led the way as one of the five biggest movers to the Top 100.

Title Leaders By Country
Players from 33 countries won titles this year. Frenchmen earned a record-setting 27 trophies, marking the most titles by a country in a single season, surpassing Argentina’s 23 from last year.

In October, Abdullah Shelbayh became the first player from Jordan to win an ATP Challenger Tour title when he won the LTP Challenger in Charleston, South Carolina.

ATP Tour & Challenger Tour champions
Roberto Carballes Baena, Arthur Fils and Ugo Humbert secured dream runs on both the ATP Tour and Challenger Tour this season. The Spaniard Carballes Baena, who won the ATP 250 event in Marrakech, defended his Seville Challenger title in September.

France’s 19-year-old Fils started the season in the best way possible, winning the opening week Oeiras Indoor 2. His breakthrough year continued as he became the youngest ATP Tour champion this season when he triumphed in Lyon. Fils finished the season at World No. 36.

Despite Humbert’s brief exit from the Top 100 in January, the Frenchman embarked on a memorable season in which he claimed two consecutive ATP Challenger Tour 175 titles: Cagliari and Bordeaux. The 25-year-old closed the season by winning the ATP 250 event in Lyon, finishing at a career-high No. 20.

ATP Challenger 175 Events
In March, the ATP Challenger Tour began 175 category tournaments, which are held during select ATP Masters 1000 tournaments. Nuno Borges won the premiere event at the Arizona Tennis Classic in Phoenix. Andy Murray earned his first title at any level since 2019 when he won the Aix-en-Provence Challenger. Humbert won in Cagliari and Bordeaux while German Dominik Koepfer returned to the winners’ circle in Turin.

Fast Facts

• Luca Van Assche and Ugo Humbert battled for three hours and 56 minutes in the Pau final, setting the record for longest Challenger title match.
• Roman Safiullin became the first player to win a Challenger title and reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals in the same season since Nick Kyrgios in 2014.
• A single-season record 16 different players that competed in college tennis accounted for 24 Challenger titles this year, led by four-time winner Aleksandar Kovacevic (Illinois) and three-time champion Nuno Borges (Mississippi State).
• Next Gen ATP Finals champion Hamad Medjedovic joined Novak Djokovic and Janko Tipsarevic as the only Serbian players with three or more Challenger titles as teenagers. Medjedovic finished his 2023 campaign with a perfect 3-0 record in Challenger finals.
• Kei Nishikori won in Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico to become the first unranked champion in Challenger history. Nishikori’s victory came in his first tournament after a 20-month injury hiatus.
• A record nine titles were won with the champion saving match point(s) in the final, led by Terence Atmane in Guangzhou, where he saved three championship points.
• At 31 years and three months, France’s Arthur Weber became the oldest player to win a title in his Challenger debut (Zhuhai).
• Andy Murray set the record for longest gap between Challenger titles. The Scot triumphed in Aix-en-Provence 17 years and eight months after his title in Binghamton in 2005.
• Luca Van Assche, Arthur Fils and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard became the first French teen trio to claim Challenger titles in a single season since 2005 (Monfils, Gasquet, Tsonga).
• Dino Prizmic, 18, won his maiden ATP Challenger Tour in Banja Luka to become the youngest Croatian champion since Borna Coric in 2014.
• The-then 18-year-old Alex Michelsen won the Chicago Challenger to become the youngest American winner since Stefan Kozlov in 2016.
• Jakub Mensik became the youngest Czech champion in history (17 years, 8 months) when he took the title in Prague in May.
• Evan King and Reese Stalder claimed the most team titles in 2023, lifting seven trophies together, marking the most for an all-American duo in a single season. 
• The Challenger Cherbourg La Manche became the first indoor tournament to celebrate 30 years on the ATP Challenger Tour. Cherbourg is joined by Prostejov, Czech Republic (30), Cordenons, Italy (20) and Ostrava, Czech Republic (20) in celebrating significant milestone anniversaries in 2023.
• A total of 46 different countries hosted Challenger tournaments in 2023.

The best-of-five format at the Grand Slams lends itself to matches full of twists and turns as the world’s best compete on the game’s biggest stages. The four majors in 2023 delivered with memorable matchups full of quality and drama from start to finish.

As we continue our look back at the 2023 season, ATPTour.com counts down the five greatest Grand Slam matches of the year.

5) Wimbledon Open R1, Tsitsipas d. Thiem 3-6, 7-6(1), 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-6(10-8)
A roller-coaster match that was played over two days at Wimbledon climaxed with a dramatic final-set tie-break, the result on a knife’s edge until the last ball of the three-hour, 55-minute contest.

Stefanos Tsitsipas trailed by a set overnight, with the match suspended midway through set two. But the Greek took control upon its resumption, only to see Dominic Thiem battle back. After Thiem saved a break point early in the fourth set, he won a tense tie-break and then — for a brief moment — appeared to have secured a break lead in the fifth. But an accurate overrule by the chair umpire stopped Thiem from taking a 4-3 lead, and Tsitsipas ultimately closed out a gritty victory with a forehand passing shot on his third match point.

“It was pretty stressful, I won’t lie. We were out there, I don’t know how many hours… for a second I thought we were doing the repeat of Isner-Mahut,” Tsitsipas said after levelling the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head at 5-5. “We both fought hard today. We put on a show. I hope everyone enjoyed it.”

It was the second straight match (and the third out of four) between the opponents to require a decisive tie-break, with Tsitsipas also taking that route to wins earlier in the season in Madrid and in the 2019 Nitto ATP Finals title match.

Stefanos Tsitsipas” />
Photo: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

4) US Open R4, Zverev d. Sinner 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3
The longest match at the 2023 US Open ended at 1:39 a.m. with Alexander Zverev still standing after a statement win. In a four-hour, 41-minute battle of attrition played in high humidity, Jannik Sinner struggled with cramp in the second and third sets but still put forth an impressive display to drag his opponent into a fifth.

With punishing rallies to match the punishing conditions, both players were visibly struggling in between points but summoning supreme effort when the ball was in play. Sinner was firmly in the ascendancy in the fourth set, looking the fresher of the two until Zverev rebounded down the stretch. In a high-quality final set, Zverev’s big swings yielded 14 winners to Sinner’s seven, guiding him to a memorable triumph.

“I guess I can say I’m back, right? This is what I live for, this is what I absolutely love to do,” said Zverev, who missed the second half of 2022, including the US Open, with a serious ankle injury. “I wish I could have played a little bit shorter, that’s for sure, but last year when I wasn’t able to play, these were exactly the moments I missed. Until 1:30 a.m. in front of a packed crowd on Arthur Ashe Stadium. There’s nothing better.”

For Sinner, it was a second straight heartbreaking late-night defeat in New York. In 2022, the Italian lost a five-hour, 15-minute marathon to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz that finished at a record-late 2:50 a.m.

Alexander Zverev” />
Photo: Corey Sipkin/AFP via Getty Images

3) Australian Open R4, Rublev d. Rune 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6(11-9)
The fifth set of this Melbourne thriller might have been the most dramatic set of tennis this season, with Andrey Rublev battling back from the brink on multiple occasions to advance to the Australian Open quarter-finals for the second time, at the expense of Holger Rune.

In the final set of the Top 10 matchup, Rublev trailed 2-5, stared down two match points at 5-6, and found himself in a 0/5 hole in the decisive tie-break. It was Rune’s turn to save two match points later in the tie-break, before a net cord dribbler ended the match in Rublev’s favour.

“I never in my life was able to win matches like this,” said Rublev, who won 12 of 13 points to erase the 2-5 deficit in the final set. “This is the first ever time that I won something like this, especially in a very special tournament, the Australian Open, to be in the quarter-finals. So it’s something I will remember for sure all my life. I have no words, I am shaking and happy.” 

While both players showcased big hitting and world-class shotmaking throughout the match, neither could sustain his best level long enough to pull away. It appeared Rublev would do just that when Rune began cramping early in the fourth set, but the Dane soldiered on and ultimately found his best form early in the fifth. But in a match full of twists and turns, there would be plenty more, with Rublev coming out on top by the slimmest of margins.

2) Australian Open R1, Murray d. Berrettini 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-7(7), 7-6(10-6)
This opening-round showdown between five-time Melbourne finalist Andy Murray and returning semi-finalist Matteo Berrettini set a sky-high bar at the very start of the Grand Slam season. The four-hour, 49-minute triumph also began the emergence of “Marathon Murray” in 2023, with the three-time Grand Slam champion showing a penchant for winning long-running matches throughout the early stages of the season.

In Melbourne, Murray attacked the Berrettini backhand early and often to build a two-set lead, but the Italian found his footing to roar back. Berrettini rose to the occasion in the fourth-set tie-break, playing some of his best tennis to deny Murray when the Scot was twice two points from victory. But the 13th seed’s backhand miss on match point at 5-4 in the fifth — a routine would-be winner that he may still be replaying in his head — set the stage for Murray’s resurgence.

The Briton raced out to a 5/0 lead in the decisive tie-break and never looked back, ultimately notching his first Top 20 win at a Grand Slam since 2017.

“I’ve put a lot of work into the past few months with my team here to give me the opportunity to perform on stadiums like this and in matches like this against players like Matteo, and it paid off tonight,” said Murray, who had never played a 10-point tie-break before.

Just how close was this match during the home stretch? After Berrettini secured his lone break of serve to lead 3-2 in the third set, there were no further breaks in Rod Laver Arena.

1) Wimbledon Final, Alcaraz d. Djokovic 1-6, 7-6(6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4
One month after what promised to be an epic Roland Garros semi-final petered out when Carlos Alcaraz suffered with cramp, the Spanish star met Novak Djokovic once again at the business end of a Grand Slam — this time at Wimbledon. While Alcaraz entered as the favourite on the Paris clay, the statistics said that Djokovic had the advantage in London, where he was seeking his fifth consecutive title.

The Serbian was also bidding to continue his quest for the calendar-year Grand Slam, having won both Australian Open and Roland Garros to open the season. He was well on his way to what would have been his eighth Wimbledon title after a one-sided first set, but when Alcaraz saved a set point before winning the second-set tie-break, the complexion of the match changed dramatically.

“After the first set, I thought, ‘Carlos, increase the level, everyone will be disappointed,’ ” recalled the 20-year-old, who was playing in just his fourth grass-court event.. He continued to raise his game in the third set, but Djokovic showed his legendary resolve to force a decider.

Immediately after fighting off a break point early in the final set with dogged defense, Alcaraz earned the decisive break in the very next game.

“Amazing, what quality at the end of the match,” Djokovic said to his opponent during the trophy ceremony. “When you had to serve it out, you came up with some big serves and big plays so you deserve it, absolutely. Congratulations.”

Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images

Read all stories in our Best Of 2023 review.