Whoever wins Sunday’s Australian Open men’s singles final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz will create history.<\/p>\n
Djokovic, 38, has been stuck on 24 Grand Slam titles since September 2023 – and one more success will take him clear of Margaret Court’s record of major singles titles.<\/p>\n
One of the young guns stopping Djokovic has been 22-year-old Alcaraz. <\/p>\n
The Spaniard has already lifted six major trophies – and victory in Melbourne would seal a maiden Australian Open title and make him the youngest man to have won all four Grand Slams.<\/p>\n
Unlike Alcaraz, Djokovic does not have time on his side. <\/p>\n
That is why this final feels so crucial for Djokovic – and that could provide the fuel to fire him to crowning glory.<\/p>\n
At the beginning of the season-opening Grand Slam, Djokovic insisted he did not feel this fortnight was “make or break” for his ambition of hitting the magic number of 25.<\/p>\n
It felt like Djokovic was attempting to release the pressure on himself, and that has continued going into Sunday’s showpiece.<\/p>\n
Asked about its significance in the context of his career, Djokovic said: “The final of a Grand Slam, there is a lot at stake. But it is no different from any other big match that I play.”<\/p>\n
Only Djokovic knows if he truly believes that.<\/p>\n
There is little doubt, however, that the longer time ticks on, the less likely it is he will clinch the elusive 25th title he so dearly craves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whoever wins Sunday’s Australian Open men’s singles final between Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz will create history. Djokovic,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-401720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}