Djokovic Conquers Auger-Aliassime in Marathon Wimbledon QF | Monday Match Analysis

**Gill Gross** (0:01)
Hey, everyone. Gill Gross here, Post Match. Novak Djokovic vs. Felix Auger-Aliassime, Wimbledon 2026 Quarterfinal. If you're not here for spoilers, click off the video. Novak Djokovic has done it again. Another thriller, another five setter. He beats Felix Auger-Aliassime in five to reach his record eighth consecutive Wimbledon semifinal.
We are a little over halfway through 2026 And Novak Djokovic is the gift that keeps on giving. I think that he has the three best matches this year, all of them.
The Wimbledon quarterfinal that we just witnessed, the Roland-Garros third round match against Fonseca, and the Australian Open semifinal against Yannick Sinner. I think this match was probably in third place for me, just because on average, I think the quality and entertainment value of the points were a little bit better in the other two.
Some people might bring up Zverev versus Alcaraz. The fifth set was incredible, maybe the best set of the year. Reminder, the four sets before that, very weird, very dramatic, but not really a great watch. Zverev completely flat and listless for the first two sets, Alcaraz cramping for the next two. Just a reminder there, I know that some people might bring up Djokovic Draper, I know that some people might bring up maybe Tommy Paul, Arthur Feist, but I think that Novak Djokovic has the three best matches of 2026 At his age, he is still like, I don't want to be extreme here, and say like he's carrying tennis, but you can say it if you want. I just think he's got the three best matches so far this year. All right, let's continue.
Normally, I talk some big picture takeaways before jumping into the Xs and Os, but let's go reverse here. Let's jump right into some Xs and Os, and let's start with the deciding tiebreak, the tiebreak to 10 that would decide this match.
Question coming in was, how would Djokovic look to pick apart Felix's backhand?
For a lot of the match, it seemed like he was struggling to dominate in that pattern. Certainly, not winning as much backhand to backhand as he probably should have been. What were the reasons for that? First off, credit to Felix for a lot of portions of this match, and we'll talk about when this wasn't the case. Felix was hitting his backhand pretty well, and Novak was struggling to make an impact offensively off of it. He was not finding a lot of runaround forehands off of it, tougher to do on the grass, definitely a big sapping of energy if you're constantly running around. So he's mostly hitting backhands off of it, was not dropshotting much.
I thought he should have been dropshotting a lot more actually, but he wasn't dropshotting much off of the backhand in that pattern. What he was trying to do was find that backhand down the line. Often, it wasn't really firing like you'd think. Sometimes it wasn't damaging, and in that case he was kind of just tapping out of the pattern, and Felix had the rally back on his forehand because Djokovic didn't really make any progress by going to the backhand down the line. Other times, Novak missed his backhand down the line. Sometimes Felix was successfully able to change himself out of the pattern, but you put it all together, and it felt like Djokovic just wasn't really finding it. He wasn't unlocking the...
He wasn't dissecting Felix's backhand in a way that seemed repeatable. Until he was.
Because throughout the match, I was thinking, man, there would have been a time, there would have been a time when he might just, if he doesn't have that backhand on the line going, and he can't find the forehand, and he can't find the drop shot, nothing's really working, there would be a time where he'd just be like, you know what, I'll just stay cross. I'll just hang. Let's just stay there. And we're going to test Felix's tolerance off of that side, and we are going to force him potentially into a tough change of direction or a jammed runaround because he's desperate to find a forehand. Like, we're going to make Felix make the first move in a way that's probably inherently low percentage or gets him out of position or compromises him in some way.
Novak never really committed to that throughout the match, not consistently. And the reason obviously is we're at a phase in his career where he's not looking to invite 20 ball rallies in certain spots. He'll pick his spots and he'll be willing to play them. But he doesn't want to consistently invite that. So for that reason, the idea that he's just going to just hang in these back end and back end rallies and be like, Felix, you go first. That just wasn't his plan A until it was until it was in the tie break. He completely changed it. He put everything back hand cross. It was hugely noticeable, hugely effective. Love all first point of the tie break back end and back end keeps it cross. Felix goes to a drop shot down the line. Djokovic's great acceleration gets up to it easily and actually redrops for a winner. One all, two points later.