Whereas age is clearly catching up on Djokovic, his insatiable urge for food for Grand Slam success is displaying no indicators of slowing down.

A patchy season by his lofty requirements has led to questions raised about his stamina and motivation, whereas the departure of rival-turned-coach Andy Murray from the Serb’s group additionally indicated issues weren’t functioning as he hoped.

However when the most important tournaments come round, Djokovic is all the time nonetheless primed to problem within the latter levels.

In Melbourne, he defied the percentages to beat Alcaraz and attain the semi-finals, though the bodily exertions it took led to a hamstring tear which meant he needed to retire injured towards Zverev within the final 4.

Nonetheless it confirmed he nonetheless had the need and functionality to beat the youthful era taking on.

Zverev, 28, was as soon as a part of the subsequent era anticipated to interchange Djokovic, Murray, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.

This defeat was one other illustration of how he’s typically unable to problem-solve towards Djokovic.

Typically accused of being too passive, he was rooted deep behind the baseline for a lot of the competition and paid the worth as Djokovic took management along with his craftmanship.

With perception or focus hardly ever wavering, Djokovic began dictating the patterns of play and used the drop shot successfully to unsettle Zverev.

Zverev was aiming to achieve the semi-finals for the fourth consecutive yr and when the three-time Grand Slam runner-up lastly thought his likelihood of a comeback had arrived halfway by means of the fourth set, he was denied in arguably the purpose of the event.

Djokovic confirmed all his elasticity and endurance to cease Zverev having a chance to show the match round, enabling him to serve out victory after three hours and 17 minutes – when Zverev couldn’t return one other deft drop-shot.