Tennis
The Murcian tennis player will seek tomorrow to be crowned in the Hamburg tournament against Musetti after solving his tough match this Saturday against Molcan with great class
The brave Slovakian Álex Molcan rowed and rowed, a daring left-hander who at 24 is finding his place on the circuit (he is already 48 in the world and two months ago played the final of the Lyon tournament) and who this week in Hamburg He has vindicated with a great tennis. But it did not surprise Carlos Alcaraz, who took the class out of him to win a tough match (7-6 and 6-1) and stand in the final of the ATP 500 in Hamburg. His rival will be the Italian Lorenzo Musetti, 20 years old and number 62 on the circuit, who this Saturday unraveled the Argentine Francisco Cerundolo in the semifinals (6-3 and 7-6).
With nothing to lose, Molcan looked for Carlos Alcaraz’s tickles in the first set and found them for a while. The Murcian got entangled with his serve every time he was able to leave sight for sentence that first sleeve and the duel went to the tiebreaker. Juan Carlos Ferrero’s pupil, who 24 hours earlier had been a steamroller against Khachanov, twisted his face. He could not find a way to placate the cheeky Molcan, capable of opening great angles from the bottom of the court and very firm in the rest.
But since Alcaraz is a genius, he again rebelled at the critical moment of the match and brought out the best of his repertoire when necessary. In that ‘tie-break’, which ended 7-1 for the Murcian, Alcaraz was reunited with his tennis and it was the same one that had destroyed Khachanov the day before. He closed the set with a starry drop shot that finished disarming Molcan.
There was no more story. The inspired and feisty Molcan of the first set gave way to another player, abandoned to his fate and surrendered to the evidence that Alcaraz was outperforming him in exchanges and doing a lot of damage to the rest. The Murcian has a lot of class and he showed it again in a second set in which he no longer encountered resistance on the other side of the net (6-1).
If Alcaraz beats Musetti in the final this Sunday (3:00 p.m., Movistar) he will win the sixth title of his career, the fifth in 2022, which is being spectacular for the young Murcian tennis player. In addition, he will climb two places in the ranking, ahead of the Norwegian Casper Ruud and the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, and placing fourth in the world, his highest position so far. Alcaraz and Musetti are from the same generation, although the transalpine is a year older. They have never met on the ATP circuit, but they have in lower category tournaments. It happened twice and on both occasions the player from El Palmar prevailed.
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