LONDON: Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz produced an utterly ruthless performance to dismantle Serbia’s Novak Djokovic 6-2 6-2 7-6(4) in a rematch of last year’s Wimbledon final to successfully defend his title on Sunday.

Alcaraz now has four Grand Slam trophies with a perfect record in major finals, after his two Wimbledon triumphs, his US Open victory in 2022 and his French Open win last month. Defeat denied Djokovic a 25th Grand Slam title to surpass Margaret Court in the all-time list and also equal Swiss Roger Federer’s haul of eight men’s singles titles at Wimbledon.

“It’s a dream for me, winning this trophy,” said Alcaraz, who became the ninth man to retain his Wimbledon title in the professional era.

“In an interview when I was 11 or 12 I said my dream was to win Wimbledon, so I’m replaying my dream. I want to keep going but it’s a great feeling to play in this beautiful court and to lift this amazing trophy.

“This is the most beautiful tournament, most beautiful court and most beautiful trophy.” Victory made him the sixth man in the professional era to claim the Roland Garros and Wimbledon titles in the same year, joining Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, Rafa Nadal, Federer and Djokovic. “It’s a huge honor for me to be part of those players who have achieved Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year. They are huge champions,” Alcaraz said.

“I don’t consider myself as a champion yet, not like them, but I’ll keep going to build my path, my journey.”

Alcaraz pounced on his fifth break point in a tight first game that lasted 14 minutes as Djokovic’s usually impenetrable defence was breached early on a sunlit Centre Court. The 21-year-old third seed dropped the hammer from there and powered through the first set on the back of some solid serving, leaving Djokovic with a mountain to climb.

Second seed Djokovic came under more pressure at the start of the next set as Alcaraz bullied the 37-year-old in the early exchanges to break and capitalized on his service woes for an imposing two-set lead.

Djokovic and Alcaraz went toe-to-toe until 4-4 in the third set before the Spaniard broke with a big backhand winner to take a 5-4 lead, as the Centre Court crowd sensed an early finish.

However, despite racing to 40-0 with some sublime tennis, he squandered three match points and dropped serve as fans rose to their feet to egg Djokovic on.

There was to be no comeback, however, as Alcaraz tamed his nerves to clinch victory in the tiebreak around 20 minutes later when Djokovic crashed a return into the net.

“Obviously it’s not the result I wanted and especially in the first couple of sets, the level of tennis wasn’t up to par from my side,” Djokovic said. “But credit to Carlos for playing some complete tennis. From the back of the court, on serve, he had it all today. I tried to push him and saved the three match points, extended the match a little bit, but it wasn’t meant to be really. “He was an absolutely deserved winner today. Congratulations to him for amazing tennis.” — Reuters