A game within a match to win a Championship: Carlos Alcaraz won it and Novak Djokovic didn’t and so it is that the 20-year-old world No.1 is the new Wimbledon champion. Alcaraz won 1-6, 7-6(6), 6-1, 3-6, 6-4.

Djokovic was, as usual, chasing history. He was attempting to become only the third man in the Open era to win five consecutive Wimbledon titles and only the second to win eight in all.

He was fighting to win his 24th Grand Slam title and draw level with Margaret Court at the top of that leader board. And he was trying to keep his hopes of winning a calendar Grand Slam alive. But Alcaraz stopped him in his tracks.

“It’s a dream come true for me,” Alcaraz said. “I fall in love with grass right now!

"I said before, it’s great to win but even if I had lost, I would be really proud of myself, making history in this beautiful tournament, playing against a legend of our sport. For me, it’s incredible.

“For a boy, 20 years old, I didn’t expect to reach these situations so fast. I’m really proud of myself; I’m really proud of the team that I have, the work that we do every day to be able to live this experience.”

It is probably best to draw a veil over the opening set. Alcaraz was nervy; Djokovic was in his element. The Spaniard’s feared forehand was misfiring and apart from the one break point he held in the opening game, the usually confident, aggressive Alcaraz was nowhere to be seen.

The beauty of Grand Slam tennis, though, is that it is played over the best of five sets so losing the first set is not ideal but neither is it necessarily terminal. And sure enough, Alcaraz relaxed a little in the second set; he was hitting the ball better and harder and within 10 minutes, he was a break to the good.

Better still, when one shot clipped the net cord leaving Djokovic no chance to put away his response, the crowd cheered wildly, Djokovic looked distinctly offended and Alcaraz smiled. And, as he has pointed out several times in the past few days: when he smiles, he wins.

Yet smiling under the relentless pressure of the champion is no easy feat. Djokovic broke back. Alcaraz dug in. Some of the rallies were eye-popping; some were marathons. The Serb pressed and pressed; the world No.1 retaliated and pushed back.

The longer it went on, the more Alcaraz looked flustered. He chuntered away to his box when his shots missed the mark and he turned to them in disbelief when the line calls went against him.

Meanwhile, Djokovic was moving inexorably towards the tie-break (and he was on an unbeaten run of 14 tie-breaks in Grand Slams).

That was when everything changed. That was when history stopped. Alcaraz did the unthinkable: he hung on and he took the second set tie-break.

A warning from Fergus Murphy for taking too long in his service preparations did little for Djokovic’s mood and neither did a couple of backhands planted into the net.

The champion’s lead had been cancelled and within a matter of minutes, he was a break down in the third set. The match was a little over two hours old and Alcaraz had his nose in front for the first time.

Making sure he kept it there took a monumental effort. Now we had come to the crucial game. It took 26 minutes, 32 points, 13 deuces and seven break points. Djokovic was fighting tooth and nail to hold his serve and prevent Alcaraz from taking a two-break lead of 4-1. But he couldn’t do it; the younger, stronger man would not let him.

Had Djokovic hung on, it might have punched a hole in the Spaniard’s confidence. As it was, Alcaraz had shown the living legend that his legs were 16 years younger and his heart and mind were untroubled by the weight of history. He just wanted to win.

After the third set, Djokovic marched off to the locker room for a change of clothes and a pep talk from that man staring back at him in the bathroom mirror.

It is something he has done many times before and usually the face in the mirror offers words of comfort and advice. This time, however, the oracle was stumped. Nothing much to offer.

So back came the champion and got back to what he had been doing before.

He did it a bit better, mind you, and it won him the fourth set but at the start of the fifth, it all started to go wrong. He held a break point only to smack his smash into the net and let Alcaraz off the hook.

In the very next game, the two were going toe to toe in ferocious rallies when suddenly Alcaraz saw his opening, landed a backhand pass and broke the Serb’s serve.

Djokovic was furious and smashed his racket to smithereens on the net post. Alcaraz did not bat an eyelid. He had his break; he was on his way to the title.

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