Alcaraz bundles it in New York with his victory against Tsitsipas

With his hands on his head, Carlos Alcaraz listened as the crowd at Arthur Ashe, the center court of the US Open, applauded and cheered wildly. He had just beaten Stefanos Tsitsipas in a great game that was decided in the tiebreaker of the fifth set after just over four hours of hard battle: 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (2), 0-6 and 7-6 (5). The face of the Greek on the other side of the net, humiliated by the Murcian, was a poem. Charly had just achieved something historic, beating a top-5 in a Grand Slam at 18 years and four months, something that neither Nadal, just about, nor Djokovic nor Federer achieved as young as him. In the stands, Juan Carlos Ferrero, his coach and finalist in the 2003 US tournament (he fell to Andy Roddick) could not hold back his tears.

“This crowd loves you,” the track interviewer told him. And he was right. “I would not have won without them,” replied Alcaraz, who in his first appearance on the largest tennis court in the world put the fans in their pockets with a demonstration of race, strength, quality and tactics incredible for his age. “Let's go, Carlos” (Come on, Carlos). That song was heard by the boy, who seemed sunk in the fourth set, in which he fit a donut and accused muscular problems. But he got up like a veteran and got rock solid, shortened the points and hit that tie-break that he will never forget, because it will change his life forever.

Before he had started the game with an impressive 4-0, and had starred in a feat within another feat. In the third magna, with 5-2 against, he raised three set points and step by step forced 6-6 to play the first tiebreaker of the match, in which the leader of victories of the course (50), champion from the ATP Finals in 2019, from the Monte Carlo Masters 1,000 this year and a finalist shortly after at Roland Garros. “Winning Stefanos is a dream come true for me, the biggest win of my career,” said Carlos., which now has before it the path of a seeded. In the second round, his best result, at the moment, in majors, awaits the affordable German Gojowczyk (32 years old and 151st in the world).

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