Are we ready for the feast? The champion says his young opponent is hungry, he’s famished too and the world is positively ravenous to witness what promises to be a Wimbledon duel for the ages.

This 136th gentlemen’s singles final is a classic generation game. On one side, Novak Djokovic, perhaps the sport’s greatest champion of all, apparently defying age to look, almost impossibly, more surgically brilliant than ever.

On the other, Carlos Alcaraz, a youthful meteor so dazzling that it doesn’t feel outlandish to think he could be rocketing tennis to heights it’s never witnessed.

You get collisions like this maybe once in a generation, a potential changing-of-the-guard moment when two sporting titans meet on different trajectories.

One is 36 and the other 20, an age difference only ever exceeded in a Wimbledon men’s final by Jimmy Connors’ meeting with Ken Rosewall in 1974. Dear old Ken, creaking at nearly 40, took a hiding that day – but there’s no inkling of a Djokovic decline.

Sometimes, though, age catches up with you overnight. Remember that boy with the bun Roger Federer slicing majestically through Pete Sampras’s regal aura in 2001?

Ah, but that was just the fourth round. This is a final and Djokovic looks as he feels: 36 going on 26. Changing of the guard? He smiles it ain’t happening.

At this point, can we pause, take a deep breath and ponder just which of the myriad landmarks Djokovic is in line to achieve today with a victory would be the most staggering?

A 24th Grand Slam title, to match Margaret Court’s all-time record? An eighth Wimbledon men’s crown to equal Federer? Becoming the oldest men’s singles champion in the Open era at 36 years and 55 days? A return to world No.1 for a record-extending 390th week? Take your pick; they all stretch credulity.

But now and again, someone comes along to change perceptions about what’s possible in sport. “He plays a game with which I am not familiar,” the great Bobby Jones sighed at the 1965 Masters as he watched a young colossus Jack Nicklaus ripping up Augusta National.

Many have felt the same sensation watching Alcaraz. “It’s amazing in light of what Federer, Nadal and Djokovic have done that Alcaraz seems to be taking it to a next level,” says John McEnroe.

Certainly, even at Alcaraz’s tender age, there are clear parallels in his game with Djokovic’s athletic, all-court mastery, Nadal’s one-strike blows and Federer’s devastating forehand.

But the best thing of all about this encounter? Both know this is the ultimate test on offer and they want it so badly. “The greatest challenge I could have from any angle really: physical, mental, emotional,” concedes Djokovic.

He rose spectacularly to that challenge when, in the Roland-Garros semi-final a month ago, Alcaraz, after two breathtaking, shared sets, disintegrated physically, his body cramping through the sheer weight of nerves.

So is it perhaps too easy for us to forget this phenomenon is still barely out of his teens, up against the most voracious winning machine tennis has seen?

Alcaraz can’t help sounding a little awestruck. “No weakness. He's a really complete guy, really complete player. He's amazing. He does nothing wrong on the court. Physically he's a beast. Mentally he's a beast,” he coos about Djokovic.

He paints this day as being the best, most emotional moment of his life, while suggesting that for beastly Djokovic it’s merely “one more day, one more moment”.

But that is to misread the champion; he treats every final, even this 35th Grand Slam showdown (another record, naturally), like a sacred crusade. One final insane fact for the road? No player born after Djokovic has won the Wimbledon men’s singles title. Clearly, he won’t allow it.

Later on, Australia’s Storm Hunter and Belgium’s Elise Mertens will face Chinese Taipei’s Su-Wei Hsieh and the Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova in the ladies’ doubles final on Centre Court.

And could we bow out with a British singles victor?

Alfie Hewett is aiming to win that elusive wheelchair singles title here against Japan’s teen wonder Tokito Oda, while Henry Searle takes on Yaroslav Demin hoping to become the first home winner of the boys’ singles title since Stanley Matthews Junior, son of the great footballer, 61 years ago.

What a day, then, for Henry, a 17-year-old prospect from Wolverhampton, who’ll always be able to say he really launched his own dream on one of Wimbledon’s seismic days.

The Championships 2024 will take place from July 1 – 14 2024 and the Wimbledon Public Ballot will open in mid-September. Make sure you’re one of the first to hear about tickets for next year’s Championships by signing up to myWimbledon.