Djokovic v Alcaraz: Young upstart looking to stop Novak's surge for Grand Slam No 23

The vigil has begun.

The tennis world, for one, has had to face up to the inevitable since Rafael Nadal confirmed what most would have been happy to deny a little while longer.

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Yes, the march of time, that spiteful old leveller, takes no prisoners as the heroes of the millennial age have laid down their mantles, one after the other.

And, yes, we're all getting a little older - we who have witnessed the most gilded of sporting eras across all disciplines, those supreme beings who still straddled that beautiful hybrid cast between the romantic age and the age of the professional athlete.

For the first time since Nadal's debut in 2005, when he also won the first of 14 French titles in a Parisian summer, Roland Garros and the terracotta throne upon Court Philippe Chatrier is without its king.

Novak Djokovic, of the revered big three, stands as the last sentry of a golden era as he guards against the banging at the gates - a new era that no one is quite able to fathom yet.

Between the life we have known and the next epoch, many a false dawn has come and gone in the last decade.

The so-called next-Gen bandits of Dimitrovs and Thiems and Zverevs, then the next next-Gen of Medvedevs, Rublevs and Kyrgioses. Yes, these too have Tsitsipassed.

But then there's this other Spaniard, named Carlito Alcaraz. By all accounts, he is Nadal's heir apparent, and the big-smiling 20-year-old is knocking down the door.

And so we have the first of Friday's two French Open semi-finals.

On one hand, a 22-time Grand Slam champion in Djokovic, who is looking to clean up on cheap gongs now that a certain Swiss maestro and a raging bull are out of the picture.

On the other, Alcaraz, a champion of one since the US Open in September.

A year