“You could’ve cut the sexual tension between Billie Jean King and Kate Middleton with a knife…”

“Are you crying?” It’s the three-word question my wife asks at the conclusion of nearly every Grand Slam tennis tournament, and this afternoon she posed it after coming downstairs to find me crumpled on the living room floor just seconds after the men’s final ended. The answer, of course, was yes.

“Juan-Carlos Ferrero is crying, I think his dad is crying… His mom and I have been crying since match point,” I replied. (During his post-match interview, even Novak Djokovic was in tears of an unhappier sort.) My favorite women’s player, Iga Świątek, was bounced from Wimbledon in the quarterfinals by Elina Svitolina, a better showing than last year’s and cause for great optimism about her chances in 2024. And now my favorite men’s player, Carlos Alcaraz, #1 in the world and barely 20 years old, was climbing into the stands to embrace his family ahead of the trophy presentation.

It is hard to overstate what his victory means for tennis—and for tennis fans. Since 2003, that trophy has traded hands between only four players: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray. Djokovic was the four-time defending champion at this year’s tournament, looking to equal Roger Federer’s record of eight Wimbledon titles overall. At 36 he retains such an aura of invincibility at majors that he was, until Alcaraz bested him today, in serious contention to capture an elusive calendar Grand Slam.

There was, for me, a feeling of inevitability after Djokovic beat Alcaraz mere weeks ago in the semifinals at Roland-Garros. It was a match you felt the Spaniard could’ve taken despite its scoreline; he lost because of cramping that might’ve been avoided (or lessened in severity) with better hydration. Today he grimaced while drinking pickle juice but never lost his legs—or his determination, even after a first-set drubbing.

When he claimed a hard-fought second-set tiebreak, I began to relax. If Alcaraz maintained that level of intensity, he was going to win; his Queen’s Club grass-court warm-up title last month confirmed he excels on the surface. By the time Djokovic smacked the bejesus out of his racquet against a net post in frustration early in the fifth—leaving impressive marks on its lumber—you felt a moment 15 years in the making was finally upon us and the “Big Three” era was quietly coming to a close. (“I think I passed out,” a friend texted me in excitement.)

Why 15 years, you might ask, and not 20? It was in 2008, when Djokovic beat Federer at the Australian Open, that his mother Dijana notoriously declared “The king is dead, long live the king.” Djokovic still has plenty left in the tank, as Federer did in ’08. But today Dijana watched the coronation of a new king from her son’s Wimbledon box. Somewhere in Switzerland, maybe Lynette Federer laughed.