{"id":48687,"date":"2026-02-01T12:12:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T12:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=48687"},"modified":"2026-02-01T12:12:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T12:12:42","slug":"australian-open-final-alcaraz-beats-djokovic-to-make-history-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2026\/02\/01\/australian-open-final-alcaraz-beats-djokovic-to-make-history-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open final: Alcaraz beats Djokovic to make history &#8211; reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Djokovic collects his runners-up plate as the crowd chant his name, the adulation he\u2019s not always received in victory there in defeat.<\/strong> He begins by congratulating Alcaraz and his team, describing their work as \u201chistoric, legendary,\u201d and wishing him luck for the rest of his career \u2013 gosh, he\u2019s not going to retire here and now is he? \u2013 before joking he\u2019s sure they\u2019ll enjoy many more matches over the next 10 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Next, he thanks his team for \u201cenduring me\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s not been \u201csmooth sailing\u201d and they\u2019ve seen the best and worst of him over the last number of years but most particularly the last three weeks. His success is their success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then it\u2019s on to Nadal, who\u2019s in the stands, saying it feels very weird to see him there and not here, \u201chere\u201d being where he is; it\u2019s been an honour to share the court with him as it is now to be watched by him, this being the first time. It was two Spanish legends against one, which isn\u2019t fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He had a winning speech and a losing speech prepared, he adds, and this is Carlos\u2019s moment, so he doesn\u2019t want to take a long time, but he thanks the crowd for their support and positivity. He\u2019s tried to give it back with good tennis \u2013 this is his 21st or 22nd year \u2013 and he always believes in himself which is truly necessary when playing at this level, but he didn\u2019t think he\u2019s be there in the final, so owes the crowd his gratitude for pushing him forwards. \u201cGod knows what happens tomorrow, let alone in six months or 12 months,\u201d he finishes, \u201cbut it has been a great ride, I love you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So not quite a retirement, but perhaps the first hint that it\u2019s close. Gosh. I fear my eyeballs may be sweating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Djokovic collects his runners-up plate as the crowd chant his name, the adulation he\u2019s not always received in victory there in defeat. He begins by congratulating Alcaraz and his team, describing their work as \u201chistoric, legendary,\u201d and wishing him luck for the rest of his career \u2013 gosh, he\u2019s not going to retire here and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[12886,10970,8249,9327,10507,9171,10191,8057,1445,6220,8443,10480,10041,9030,5538,10885,10415,594],"class_list":["post-48687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-alcaraz","tag-australia-open","tag-australian","tag-australian-open","tag-court","tag-crowd","tag-djokovic","tag-fear","tag-god","tag-love","tag-retirement","tag-spanish","tag-speech","tag-success","tag-tennis","tag-victory","tag-work","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48689,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48687\/revisions\/48689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}