Carlos Alcaraz only has one thing in his mind: revenge. Last year, it seemed that Alcaraz was unstoppable, winning Roland Garros and Wimbledon back-to-back, and grazing Olympic Gold in Paris... only to fall in a nearly three-hour final, 7-6(3), 7-6(2), to the by then 37-year-old Serbian. After that, Alcaraz started a downhill trend that lasted the entire hard court season, even dropping to third place in the ranking behind Zverev.
One year later, Alcaraz has bounced back, only losing one match in the last five months (against Sinner in the Wimbledon final, his last singles defeat other than that is the Barcelona Open final to Holger Rune in April). And now has the chance to take revenge on Djokovic not only for the Paris 2024 final, but also the Australian Open quarter-final in January.
"We all know Novak's game... It doesn't matter that he has been out of the Tour since Wimbledon. He's playing great matches here. I know he's hungry. I know his ambition for more, so let's see", said Alcaraz. "I know I played a lot of times against him. I really want revenge. That's obvious." Alcaraz is set to face Novak Djokovic on Friday, at the US Open semi-final.
In his path to US Open semi-finals, Djokovic has been victorious with some difficulties, asking medical assistance on several occasions, struggling certainly more than Alcaraz, who has not dropped a set. However, that's deceiving, as Djokovic was also in pain in his Australian match, but still managed to best Alcaraz... only to withdraw in the following semi-final with Zverev.
"The next couple of days is really key for me to really get my body in shape and ready to battle five sets if it's needed. I would love to be fit enough to play and to play potentially five sets with Carlos", said Djokovic, who wants to add a fifth US Open to his trophy list before retiring (he lost the last one in 2023), a record-breaking 25th Grand Slam, and further improve his head-to-head record with Alcaraz, currently 5-3 to the veteran player.