Carlos Alcaraz closes with an open, impeccable serve, impeccable so far in this Olympic event in which the action is going at full speed and in which the boy has not yet dropped a set in the singles category. He competed and advanced the previous evening, he won again in the first round on Wednesday (6-4 and 6-2, in 1h 30m) and there is no time to savour or get absorbed in the reward of the quarterfinals: three hours later, back on the sand. It will not be at Lenglen, the setting for this last victory against Roman Safiullin, but at Chatrier, not before 19.00. With Rafael Nadal, he will seek access to the semi-finals in the doubles category, knowing that he is on the right path – without any swings, firm, settled – and that he is beginning to glimpse the options of making the podium. He will face a bigger obstacle next season, the American Tommy Paul, superior to Corentin Moutet (7-6(6) and 6-3) and whom he recently crossed paths with at Wimbledon.
It has not been easy, because there in front of him was Safiullin, one of those tough guys who neither feel nor suffer nor blink. The Russian is cold, cold, all decisive, dynamic and rebellious. He breaks it and does not turn his back on the body to body, crouching waiting for the opportunity. It does not matter that the young man has come out in a stampede and has charged him, a double break at the entrance; he is unfazed, he hits with everything – the spectator in the side stands testifies, the ball is tremendous – and he recovers to constantly bother, not a moment of respite for the Murcian. From 3-0 to 3-2, and so on until the first set is resolved. At the end Alcaraz manages to ration the advantage, without dispersing, and closes by reversing with the right, a trademark shot.
The Spaniard had been warned, even though his rival’s recent times (66th in the world) have not been prosperous. There was last year’s encounter in Bercy, on the other bank of the Seine, where Safiullin won with racket blows. Not this time. One scenario has nothing to do with the other, not one moment with the other. Focused, with a lot of poise and imposing his heavy shot from the baseline, the player from El Palmar also takes control of the second set, in which he again takes the initiative from the beginning, thanks to the break achieved from the start. From then on, a very similar course; the serious and rocky proposal that the last Roland Garros granted him. So the Podolsk native resigns himself, competing under a neutral flag: the double backhand pass on the run destroys him.
And Alcaraz is making progress one more day, and it is worth his while. Without time to catch his breath, from one surface to another and back to clay again in search of Olympic gold, in a period of just over a month, he continues to ride in search of another prize that will sweeten a dream season a little more, in which he has already won two majors (Paris and Wimbledon) and in which he has become the tennis player to beat. With Jannik Sinner absent, he dropped out at the last minute, he and the veteran Djokovic set the pace towards the quarterfinals, which also include Stefanos Tsitsipas (7-5 and 6-1 against Sebastian Báez) and Lorenzo Musetti (6-4 and 7-5 against Taylor Fritz) after making it through to the morning. The Murcian enters the hot zone and, for the moment, as he says, continues to flow.
DJOKOVIC, SEAMLESS AND BEFORE TSITSIPAS
Alcaraz will find a tough obstacle in Tommy Paul on Thursday, even though the American (13th in the world) is naturally on cement and is better on grass than on clay. The personal balance between the two is 3-2 in favour of the Spaniard.
Djokovic, meanwhile, defeated German Dominik Koepfer (7-5, 6-3) and will face a tough match against Greek Tsitsipas. He will do so, at 37 years of age, as the oldest quarter-finalist since tennis was reintroduced into the Olympic programme (Seoul 88′) and with the statistics overwhelmingly in his favour: against the Greek, 11-2.
It was in Paris, precisely, where he came back from two sets down in the 2021 final. Back then, Alcaraz was just taking his first steps on the elite circuit and now he will burst into the penultimate round in the opposite direction to the Serbian: at 21 years old, he is the youngest on that scale since Nole himself reached it at the same age, in Beijing 2008.
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