That was insane!

After a kind of gloomy tournament, we had an amazing day yesterday—ready for the final?

It was so crazy I barely know where to start. Alcaraz pulling through 7–5 in the 5th while physically limited, before a massive feat from Djoko that nobody believed in anymore except himself. What a final we have now?

The first thing that comes to mind is the physical factor. Who’s going to recover best after these epic battles? How injured is Carlos? How do you back it up at almost 39 years old?

Unless Carlos is actually injured, which I don’t think he is given what we saw from him at the end of the match, I think both players will be able to follow up without their performance being too affected, even for Djokovic, even at his age. He’s probably the best-prepared player on tour, this match is hugely important for him as it might be his last chance to go get number 25, the adrenaline level will be sky high so I’m relatively calm about his condition tomorrow. They’ll play in the night session in a mild atmosphere, which will also help them feel good.

From a tennis point of view, we saw two very different matches, with a Djokovic who reminded us of his finest days, while Carlos was very up and down after a first part of the match that was relatively under control against Zverev.

The head-to-head is very balanced, Novak beat him right here last year while Carlos took brilliant revenge at the US Open. Final stats: Carlos will be playing for his first AO to become the youngest to complete the Grand Slam, while Novak will be playing his eleventh final here, having won the first ten.

The bookies have Carlos as the favorite at 1.35, which seems a bit low to me given what we saw yesterday. There’s always a scenario where Carlos is just way too strong, but I honestly don’t see that happening very often, and for me the value is more on Djokovic and on the prospect of a tight match.