Carlos Alcaraz He tore down the wall of Daniel Medvedevby 6-7 (1), 6–3, 6–4 y 6–4and, in the biggest wall of current tennis, the most difficult to exploit and almost impossible to jump, the Spaniard found a crack through which to sneak and draw his second final in Wimbledonwhich could bring her the fourth Grand Slam of her still short sporting career.
The octopus, the wall, the Russian wall fell, and it did so because it came up against the most brilliant Alcaraz. As expected, the Murcian, ‘in crescendo’ during the two weeks of the tournament, reached his peak when he needed it most, when he faced the player further talented of the six he has visited in Wimbledon.
Last year’s thrashing, when he inflicted a triple 6-3, was difficult to repeat and Medveded gave glimpses of having found the key to what went wrong in order to remedy it. The first set was always in his hands, even if he insisted on making it difficult for himself.
The Russian broke for the first time at 2-1, after a gift from Alcaraz, but the Murcian returned the break with an impossible lob against a 1.98m tall player, the tallest number one in the history of this sport.
Once the score was stable, the Spaniard’s serve was still lost, with first serve percentages below 40%. He lost serve again and allowed Medvedev to climb to 5-2. Nerves varied from one to the other and the Russian squandered his serve at 5-2 and a 0-30 at 5-4 to take the set.
Angry, more with himself than anything else, Medvedev took it out on the chair umpire, Eva Asderaki, who he reproached for making a mistake with a double bounce. He said something to her, unintelligible from television or on the court, and the umpire called the supervisor, to decide what to do with the Russian. A disqualification would have been possible, but not in a Wimbledon semi-final. Medvedev received a simple warning and the game continued until the tie-break, where the Muscovite only lost one point.
This was not an unfamiliar scenario for Alcaraz. It was another dose of suffering, as had already happened with Tiafoe, Humbert and Paul. He just had to know how to administer it and for Alcaraz the medicine was to start serving better.
When he made it 2-1 in the second set, after a long exchange that he sealed with a winning forehand, Alcaraz asked for the crowd’s wild card. He put his hand to his ear and fired up the centre-back while warming up the match. The next step was set in stone; it took him less than two minutes to break Medvedev’s serve and get going. From 4-2 in the first set, Alcaraz did not concede another break point until 1-0 in the fourth set. He won thirteen serves in a row, until, with the match in his pocket, two sets to one and a break in his favour, he got nervous and allowed the Russian to get going.
He gave away his serve, because of his awareness of superiority, but the match was never in danger. Medvedev would only have won this match if Alcaraz had given up, and far from that, the Spaniard lowered his head, broke the Russian’s serve again at 3-3 and sentenced the Muscovite for the second consecutive year.
With this victory, Alcaraz equals the four Grand Slam finals played by the great Manolo Santana and now has only the monstrous Rafael Nadal, who has played in thirty, ahead of him.
On Sunday, against Novak Djokovic or Lorenzo Musetti, he could become the first Spaniard to retain his title at the All England Club and the third tennis player this century to do so, after Djokovic himself and Roger Federer.
2024-07-12 15:50:52
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