At set point in the third, perhaps the moment of maximum pressure in another sumptuous match of the kind that men’s tennis has been serving up for more than two decades, Carlos Alcaraz brought Novak Djokovic into the net, then dinked a lob over the head of the Serb, leaving Djokovic scrambling to stay in the point.

Djokovic slipped as he scampered towards the back of the court, the ball looping over his head, and retained his balance only by using his racket as a makeshift crutch before sending the ball high into the heavens and dancing himself into balance as the crowd gasped. Alcaraz bottled taking the ball out of the air with a smash and let it bounce — a fatal mistake. Djokovic