With Alcaraz out and Sinner tired, is this Djokovic’s last chance at Wimbledon?

It’s just been announced that, due to a wrist injury, Carlos Alcaraz has pulled out of the grass court season, which means he won’t be competing at Wimbledon this year.

It’s unfortunate enough that he has had to pull out of the upcoming French Open at Roland Garros but this is a new blow for him and for the game in general. It seems we won’t see him at a major until the US Open in the late summer.

With the absence of Alcaraz, this appears to leave the field wide open for Jannik Sinner to clean up at both the French Open and Wimbledon.

The only man standing out of the former top three of Djokovic, Nadal and Federer is the Serbian player Novak Djokovic who, at 39 yrs, is clearly approaching the end of his singles career. People have constantly written him off in terms of winning a Grand Slam title since the top two seem to be so out of reach. It’s generally been considered an impossible task to beat both Alcaraz and Sinner in the same tournament — but, with one of them out of the way, could this be Novak’s chance? He’s been desperate to seize that elusive 25^th Grand Slam and overtake the Australian Margaret Court in terms of major victories and, with one of the giants out of the picture, this could be his last chance.

Despite being constantly written off, we should remember that he reached the semi-finals of the past four slams and even got to the final of the Australian Open earlier this year, beating Sinner in the semis in a hard-fought five set match and managing to take the opening set off Alcaraz in the final.

Novak now has a decision to make in the wake of Alcaraz’s absence at Wimbledon. Should he skip the gruelling clay court event at Roland Garros, where he hasn’t had his best results, and arrive early and well-rested for the grass court season? Sinner continues to evolve at a remarkable pace, but Novak understands the nuances of grass-court tennis better than anyone. The transition from clay to grass is notoriously tough, necessitating a completely different style of play from those long clay court rallies to the lower-bouncing and faster grass and few men have had the endurance to win what’s known as the Channel Slam.

Judging by Jannik Sinner’s phenomenal recent form, one might think a Novak Wimbledon title would be an impossibility. Last week Sinner won his home event, the Italian Open, which completed the full set of the nine ATP Masters 1000 titles – known as the “career Golden Masters”. It had been 50 years since an Italian (Adriano Panatta) last won the title in Rome and the local crowd was ecstatic. Sinner has 34 consecutive wins at the Masters 1000 events, winning six of those titles back-to-back. Surely, he’ll walk the French Open. Except, and it’s a big “except”, he looked totally drained last week. He managed somehow to limp through his semi, even throwing up at one point and then, somehow, win in straight sets against Casper Ruud in the final.

Let’s see if he can crawl to the finish line at the French. But will Sinner be in a fit state to compete successfully at Wimbledon? I imagine Djokovic hopes not.

For years, Novak was seen as the villain whenever he played Federer or Nadal. It must have been galling for him to be so unpopular in comparison. This time, as the underdog, he’ll have huge support during what will no doubt be seen as his swansong at Wimbledon.  I’ve never been keen on the man, but this time I’ll be rooting for him — along with at least 90% of the Centre Court crowd.

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