Carlos Alcaraz is already a man. With just turned 19 years old, he beat his idol for the first time, a Rafa Nadal who the day before admitted that things have changed and that right now he is the second best Spanish tennis player. That he is no longer the first. That there is another better. Many of us can think so, but few dare to say it. The fact is that Nadal said it. He sounds strong. Very strong. The best Spanish athlete of all time is no longer invincible. Not even on clay, its natural habitat. And he admits it. “I am a sensible person,” Nadal claimed.
He himself recognized that “point” of current superiority of Alcaraz, even though as an old fox he was already playing his match against the young man from Murcia the night before, while Carlitos was still fighting for a place in the quarterfinals against the British Cameron Norry. Alcaraz took the pressure off. “I am the new one,” claimed Juan Carlos Ferrero’s pupil. What happens is that the boy from El Palmar is ready for everything. Inheritor. Genius. Chosen… You know. All those things that they say about Alcaraz and that are true. All those predictions that told us about the medium and long term, but that have become outdated. Because Carlitos is present. All the present is yours.
Nadal needed to win, which is something like crossing the Rubicon. The first time he faced him there was no game. The day he turned 18 he was still a child and had no chance of taking down the Balearic colossus. It was in Madrid, like this Friday. Same scene, different context. A few weeks ago in Indian Wells it was already found that things had changed. Carlos was very close to Rafa, who in his valiant effort to contain the Murcian’s urge hurt his ribs. Real damage. He won the match but came from the California desert with an injury that prevented him from making his debut on the gravel tour until this week in Madrid.
Third time was the charm. They both knew it. Nadal arrived just. And Alcaraz, left over. Because Carlos, after being crowned in Barcelona, is grown these days in the Caja Mágica. He didn’t need his best tennis to get rid of the dangerous Basilashvili and Norrie. It is so good that he regulates himself. He has so many hits that he even lands when he messes up.
Against Nadal, although he twisted his ankle in a fateful second set, the Murcian recovered in time and showed his best game in the third set to reach the semifinals of the Mutua Open Madrid (6-2, 1-6, 6-3) . Nadal, still far from the best version of him on clay, did not finish adapting to Madrid’s height and only dominated in the second set, when Carlos hurt himself and mentally left the match.
It seemed that Alcaraz was dead and that he would not get up from the canvas. He flew over the Caja Mágica the ghost of withdrawal, thinking about what is to come: Rome and, above all, Paris. But there was no sprain. The Murcian recovered in the third round, showing himself fit and agile again, possibly without pain in his right ankle that had bent at the beginning of the second act in a bad fall.
The number 9 in the world (which this Monday will be the 7) chained many winners again and Nadal began to make the same mistakes of the first set. And there was no doubt. Alcaraz, in his dream afternoon, recovered his grandfather’s recipe in a third sleeve for history: heart, head and balls, the three ‘C’s, which served him to close a victory that he will never forget and date Serbian Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. Another duel that will mark an era.
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