Just before this year’s Wimbledon final, as Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz waited with their bags in a corridor, a tournament official came up to explain the order in which they would walk out onto Centre Court. According to a Wimbledon custom, the higher-ranked player—in this case, Djokovic—should enter second. Yet Alcaraz deferentially motioned to his elder to go first, out of respect. The players laughed about not knowing the rules, but the moment—so trivial and brief—could be understood as a rearranging of the tennis universe. Djokovic, at 37 with a recovering knee, ceded his rightful entrance to the 21-year-old phenomenon, who would go on to rout him in a straight-set victory.
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