India, Jan. 31 -- Two things are true at once about the Australian Open men's final: it's a tennis match, and it is also a shot to be in the history books for the two players.

Because when Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic walk into Melbourne Park, one of them doesn't just leave with a trophy - he leaves with a freshly edited section of the record books.

If Alcaraz wins, the story isn't simply that he has finally conquered Australia. It's that he completes tennis's most elegant checklist: winning all four majors at least once.

He already owns the other three. Melbourne is the missing stamp. And that missing stamp matters because it turns a brilliant resume into a complete one - the kind that doesn't just define generation, it survives ...