For therefore a few years, Djokovic has defied the ageing course of together with his endurance and dexterity.
This was the newest instance – at a time when few had predicted it.
Time, it appeared, had ultimately began to meet up with a participant who’s aiming to develop into the oldest Grand Slam males’s singles champion in historical past.
Final yr was the primary since 2017 – and solely the second since 2010 – that he didn’t win one of many sport’s 4 main prizes.
Doubts had already been raised about his capability to outlast the perfect of his youthful opponents – particularly Alcaraz and world primary Jannik Sinner – over 5 units.
His aura of invincibility at Melbourne Park was broken final yr when Sinner dominated their semi-final to finish his 33-match successful streak on the venue.
Then Alcaraz walloped him within the Wimbledon closing – albeit in a match that got here lower than six weeks after Djokovic had surgical procedure on a tear in his knee.
Nonetheless, Djokovic received his final encounter with Alcaraz, placing in a ferocious show on the Olympics to say a gold medal which had beforehand eluded him.
A extra affected person method within the first set on Tuesday was shortly changed after he tweaked one thing lunging for a drop-shot.
Using extra aggression was a risk-reward technique however essential given his bodily situation. It paid off.
Djokovic cracked 11 winners, together with a rasping backhand on set level to stage the match, as he efficiently negotiated his method by means of a barrage of Alcaraz drop-shots.
Alcaraz’s service video games at the beginning of the third set continued to come back underneath heavy hearth. He buckled when Djokovic broke for 4-2, with the third seed dropping serve once more for 5-3 after he had seemingly rescued the scenario.
Djokovic used the momentum to interrupt within the first sport of the fourth set – which in the end proved decisive.
After surviving three break factors and recovering from a bunch of lengthy, energy-sapping factors, Djokovic held his nerve to serve out a memorable win.
On being able to play once more on Friday, he stated: “I am involved bodily but when I can someway handle to be bodily prepared, I am mentally and emotionally as prepared as I might be.”