Carlos Alcaraz was happy to be compared to his compatriot in Rafael Nadal.

Alcaraz suffered defeat to Novak Djokovic in a thrilling Cincinnati Open final on Sunday that saw the two top-ranked players in the world battle for nearly four hours.

It was particularly emotional for Alcaraz who notably shed tears after a hard-fought game. But in the end, he was all smiles, especially as him and Djokovic had a hilarious exchange that mentioned a certain Nadal.

“Boy, you never give up man. Jesus Christ. I love that about you,” Djokovic said during his post-match speech. “But sometimes I wish you’d maybe play a few points like this.”

Alcaraz responded with “Spanish never die” to which Djokovic said: “I’ve heard that before. Or I’ve experienced this before.”

The Serbian superstar was of course referencing his many battles with Nadal and in his post-match press conference, and spoke further of how facing Alcaraz reminded him of the 22-time Grand Slam winner.

“The feeling that I have on the court reminds me a little bit of when I was facing Nadal when we were at our prime,” Djokovic said (via Tennis 365).

Alcaraz also reflected on the game during his post-match press conference and was pleased to remind Djokovic of Nadal whenever he plays him.

“Today was really, really difficult playing against Novak,” Alcaraz said. “He always put almost five, six, seven balls in [the court] every point. Fighting and running from one corner to other one every point is really tough to deal with almost the whole match.

“I tried to stay there, to stay good physically, but it was tough. As I said, I left everything on court. For me, obviously it’s great that he knows that every time he’s going to play against me, it reminds him playing against Rafa or against the best ones because that means we are on a good path. I’m working very well, but today was tough to deal with everything that Novak put me through.”

Djokovic, too, noted how tough the match was and that's only further vindication for Alcaraz that he's more than one the right path in his own tennis journey.

“For me, it’s great to hear these things from Novak, [who] has played iconic matches, storied matches,” the 20-year-old added. “He said some matches against me were [some] of the toughest that he has played, it’s great. That means that my team and myself, we are doing the great work, we are in a good path.

“[Because of] matches like this one, we know that we have to still work in the same way that we are doing.”

It may not be long until they meet again with the US Open commencing later this month. Alcaraz still remains World No. 1 with a slim 20-point lead over Djokovic and will be the top seed in New York. Djokovic, meanwhile, is the second seed, but will require just a single win at the US Open to overtake him in the ATP rankings.

If they both do their job as expected, tennis fans could be set for another epic encounter in the final in what would be just their fifth head-to-head meeting.

The current score is 2-2 between them.