Previewing the Men’s Wimbledon Final: Scoring Alcaraz and Djokovic’s Progress to the Title-Deciding Match

Only two men are left standing among the male competitors at the All England Club, the two safest bets on the men’s side: Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. This means we are in store for a scintillating rematch of the French Open semifinal between the pair, a match that — let’s be honest — should have been the final. Alcaraz’s fitness prevented the blockbuster we were all waiting for back then. With Djokovic’s record at Wimbledon is only outclassed by his results at the Australian Open, it could mean an even tougher challenge for Alcaraz, who is still a relative newbie to the grass courts. But a Queen’s title and a strong desire to amend what went down in Paris could be just the ingredients to make for an interesting match.

But what about Djokovic and Alcaraz’s form at the 2023 Wimbledon so far? What can it tell us about the kind of men’s final we are likely to get? To answer that, let’s look at how each title contender has performed against expectation from the first to the semifinal round.

Both Djokovic and Alcaraz entered Southfields as the overall strongest competitors in the men’s draw. In fact, each had ratings on serve and return skill over 2000 points. This gives neither man a lot of room to improve. Just playing to expectation could be enough for either man to be ready for a strong final performance (although Alcaraz may have more to prove). And for the most part we see performances that are within a few percentage points on serve (Figure 1 left panel) but there are a few interesting exceptions.

Figure 1. Difference in actual and expected serve and return win percentage for Djokovic and Alcaraz for each round up to the finals of the 2023 Wimbledon Championships.

Djokovic is known for having some ugly starts at events and the first round this year was no exception. Getting pushed to a tiebreak by Pedro Cachin and serving just 71% overall was below expectation for Novak but he – as he is known to do – turned things around from then on. In his next three matches, including his closest match against Hurbert Hurkacz, Djokovic won 80% of points on serve. His win percentage dropped notably against Rublev and Sinner, but neither of those were really surprising when we consider the strength of their return games.

We expect less of Alcaraz on serve and he wasn’t showing big signs of improvement in the first rounds. But by R16 Alcaraz made a more positive step against Matteo Berrettini, where a 72% win percentage on serve was higher than expected. Alcaraz followed that up with an event bigger statement against Holger Rune, where he achieved an impressive 76% win percentage on serve. Alcaraz wasn’t able to keep up that trend with Medvedev. However, given Medvedev’s strong defensive skills, performing slightly below expectation shouldn’t raise any eyebrows.

Both Djokovic and Alcaraz are known for their return games. And the balance between serve and return is particularly lopsided in Alcaraz’s case. Given that, it is remarkable that Alcaraz has still managed to perform above his expected level since R32. Even against the more formidable opponents in the later rounds, Alcaraz has been putting up return performances in the high 30s and even a jaw-dropping 46% return win percentage against Medvedev.

Novak’s return performance has been more up-and-down. In the last four rounds leading up to the final he has either been above expectation or just on target. His strongest return performance was his quarterfinal win over Rublev where he won 39% of return points. But that result was sandwiched between less impressive return percentages of just 28% versus Hurkacz and 32% against Sinner.

With Alcaraz looking on fire on the return and Djokovic more unsteady, it could suggest what key vulnerability Alcaraz will need to exploit to even be competitive against the 23-time Major title champion. That is assuming that Alcaraz can create enough pressure when Novak is receiving to draw out another average performance. In reality, the occasion may have more to do with Djokovic’s mindset than anything that is within Alcaraz’s control. With a legend-making 24 Grand Slam title in the balance, the most decisive factor in today’s match may come down to how Djokovic handles the weight of the occasion.