Like any follower of Carlos Alcaraz, the Murcian tennis player himself has one eye on his tennis and another on the other great favorite to win the US Open, Novak Djokovic. The Serb played his third round match on Friday night – it lasted until the early hours of Saturday – against a compatriot, Laslo Djere. Against the forecast, the game was complicated in a way that nobody counted on. Djere, seed number 32, won the first two sets, something at the level of very few. The possibility of a major surprise loomed over center court at NY.
“I watched the first two sets, then I had to go to sleep”Alcaraz recounted how he watched his great rival’s game from the hotel. “But when I went to bed I was thinking that Novak was going to come back, I was sure,” he added.
Alcaraz told it just after beating Dan Evans in the third round. The Spaniard also had his complications -the British took the third set and played him in the fourth-, but not as many as Djokovic’s, who had to sign an epic comeback.
“He shows again that he is one of the best in history,” Alcaraz said of the Serbian, with whom he could only meet in a hypothetical final. «At 36 he continues to do the same as when he was in his twenties, it’s incredible. You have to admit it, it’s admirable.”
Both favorites will have an affordable cross on paper in the round of 16. Djokovic will face Borna Gojo this Sunday, a Croatian who comes from the previous one. For his part, Alcaraz will meet Matteo Arnaldi on Monday, a little-known Italian, 61st in the world, 22 years old, and whose only experience in Grand Slam has been in this year’s editions of Roland Garros -he fell in the second round – and Wimbledon, struck down at the first.
“I have not been able to see him much,” Alcaraz acknowledged about his next rival, whom he could see in the Challenger that is played in Murcia, his land. “But it’s been a while since that and I haven’t seen many more games. But if he is in the fourth round and has beaten Norrie (Cameron Norrie, 16th in the world) it is that he deserves to be there, he is a very tough player ».
2023-09-02 22:19:29
#Djokovic
