Carlos Alcaraz among three takeaways from Wimbledon
By Lee Vowell
It was a fantastic Wimbledon in 2023! Tennis fans got to see the men’s final they wanted in Carlos Alcaraz versus Novak Djokovic and the two players proved why that’s the final we wanted. On the women’s side, Marketa Vondrousova became the first unseeded woman to ever win the tournament.
The weather wasn’t great, but the tennis was. We had surprise competitors in both the men’s and women’s quarterfinals which made for interesting tennis. This kept more eyes watching (more on that in just a minute).
We also learned a few things. And let’s be real, were disappointed by a few things. Here are three takeaways from Wimbledon 2023.
Starting at the end: Carlos Alcaraz is about to change tennis
People like new shiny things. A new phone comes on the market? We have to have it. A new Tom Cruise film opens at the theaters? We have to see it. And so it is with 20-year-old Carlos Alcaraz. The difference between Alcaraz and those other things is that 10 years from now Alcaraz is still going to be extremely relevant and working at a high level.
It’s pretty easy to point out that as good as Alcaraz is and how young he is, he has a very good chance, barring injury, of catching Novak Djokovic’s record of 23 Grand Slams. Djokovic is still playing at a high level as well and maybe he has another few major titles in him yet, but it feels like one king was dethroned (Djokovic) and another crowned (Alcaraz) during the Wimbledon final. Plus, who would you think would win right now at the US Open? Carlos Alcaraz or Novak Djokovic? Alcaraz, right?
But besides just winning a lot of Grand Slams and maybe one day replacing Djokovic as arguably the best tennis player ever, Alcaraz is going to bring a lot more eyes to tennis and that’s a fantastic thing. The BBC said their peak viewership during the Alcaraz-Djokovic final was 11.3 million on BBC One, the highest total since Andy Murray played in the 2016 final. The difference is that Murray is a Brit and Alcaraz is not. Alcaraz is going to change how many people are interested in tennis worldwide and the sport needs that.