I won 6-7 (5), 6-3 and 7-6 (5). He is the first player to reach the semi-finals of Indian Wells and Miami without turning 19.
Children Carlos Alcaraz after winning in the round of 16 Stefanos Tsitsipas that it had been tough (he raised a 5-2 deficit in the first set), but fun. It gives the impression that the boy still conceives tennis as a game, that it does not fit in his philosophy that it is a mere Stakhanovite exercise. So it was again before Miomir Kecmanovicwho posed more difficulties than expected to become the first tennis player who manages to play the semifinals of Indian Wells and Miami consecutively without having turned 19 years old.
The Spaniard, 14 favorite, won 6-7 (5), 6-3 and 7-6 (5), in two hours and 23 minutes, and search against Hubert Hurkacz (at one in the next morning, televised by Vamos), defender of the title and executioner of Daniil Medvedev, his first Masters 1000 final. The other place in the final will be played by Casper Ruud and Francisco Cerndolo.
It was a formidable game, between two players called to repeat confrontations of the highest voltage. Firm in his approaches, convinced of a way of understanding tennis that does not admit turning back, Alcaraz, who threw three dropshots in the final tiebreaker, defeated an opponent of indomitable appearance, who demanded everything from him and had 5-3 and service, to be two points from victory for the second time, as he had already done when he was 15-30 and five games to four.
Alcaraz has more than earned an extraordinary predicament. Not surprisingly, he walks at lightning speed, exceeding the best expectations. only Nadal he was able to stop him, in a house-brand acceleration, in the semifinals of Indian Wells. The youngest champion of an ATP 500 by winning in Rio de Janeiro is ready to continue breaking records of precocity. He came from his second victory against Tsitsipas, in a match where he left amazing points, samples of superlative abilities in all the game’s chances. It was no less in this Spanish Friday morning.
Another fearless warrior
With an even shorter route, Kecmanovic, 22, 48, also wants to ride this new wave of intrepid warriors. Champion on the land of Kitzbuhel in 2020, a year after making the final on the Antalya grass, he counts among his victims in Miami Taylor Fritzwinner against Nadal last Sunday in Indian Wells of his first Masters 1000. The Serbian is a returner of the school of the man who rules in his boxthe Argentinian david nalbandiana solid, well-armed athlete who was undeterred by the big buzz of the season.
Alcaraz was going to slipstream in the first set, unable to take the initiative, but reacted until reaching the tiebreaker. Three open serves and a fourth to the “T”. After recovering lost serve in the second game, he completed a superb sequence to level four. There are many solutions that the Murcian has. Kecmanovic was undeterred. Not when he was down 5-4 and two returns in the tiebreaker. Err Alcaraz with a long backhand and gave him the opportunity to decide later with the serve.
The Spaniard did not fall, who soon commanded comfortably at the restart. Forced to reply, he showed that he also knows how to do it. When he had to run from the Serb’s powerful punch, he did. It cost him little to equalize a set, but the fierce resistance of the Belgrade tennis player awaited him, tempered, firm, almost oblivious to emotions. I envied as Alcaraz is accustomed and rededicated the triumph, signing on camera with a heart, to his coach, John Charles Ferreroand his father, Eduardo, recently deceased.
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