Carlos Alcaraz Has Conquered All Terrain

Thanks to the eerie longevity of its recent greats, men's tennis has been preoccupied with endings over the last few years. It's all about legacy, the decision to retire, the tally of major titles once the rackets have been set down for good. All of it is almost a little morbid. How refreshing that the game's greenest superstar is reorienting the conversation around beginnings instead, because no career in men's tennis has ever started quite like that of Carlos Alcaraz. No man had ever seized all four of the sport's biggest trophies by the age of 22, a labor that the Spaniard completed Sunday by defeating Novak Djokovic, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-5, to win the 2026 Australian Open.

Going into this season, Alcaraz had won the three other majors, twice apiece, but in Melbourne he had never advanced past the quarterfinal stage. There was no reason to think he couldn't; his success on outdoor hard courts had been demonstrated amply at other stops on tour. This year, he pushed through bodily distress and one of his most difficult opponents to finish the job and secure the career Grand Slam. To even think about a 22-year-old's "legacy" right now would feel wrongheaded. How can you be looking forward and not straight at him? His staggering talent, and his very style of play, demand that any observer stay locked into the present moment, so as not to miss a single swagger, smile, or deranged moment of improvisation.

Alcaraz's title run only ever looked in peril at two moments. The first occurred during his semifinal against Alexander Zverev, the opponent who cut short his 2024 run in Australia by serving him off the court. This year, Alcaraz had won his first 17 sets at the tournament, including the first two over Zverev in that semifinal. Carlitos seemed bound for straight-set victory when he started to cramp late in the third. He took a controversial medical timeout—cramps are not technically grounds for a medical timeout—vomited into a towel, drank some pickle juice, and proceeded to hobble around the court like a pirate for the better part of two sets. Zverev, dilly-dallying fatally, needed tiebreaks to win the third and fourth sets. He went up a break in the fifth and had an opportunity to serve out the match. Instead, the greatest mover on tour recovered the feeling in his legs and claimed the next three games to win in five hours and 27 minutes, the longest semifinal in tournament history and one of the strangest victories of his young career.