The murmur of an airplane engine accompanies the signature of Carlos Alcaraz, who throws a final blow that does not return and that leads him for the second time in Wimbledon, fourth in a major, to the final chapter. Daniil Medvedev falls like ripe fruit (6-7 (1), 6-3, 6-4 and 6-4, in 2h 55m) and the Spaniard, still naive, treads on swampy ground. In certain places, there are certain untouchable things, which it is not advisable to joke about. “Sunday is going to be a good day for the Spanish,” he says, referring to the epilogue of the tournament —Novak Djokovic or Lorenzo Musetti in front, still to be decided— and the final of the European Championship between Spain and England. Football, religion here. The center back makes it ugly with the buuuuuuh which goes on for three seconds and the interviewer lets him know that he is brave for bringing up the subject. So, realizing the lapse, he clarifies and apologizes with his hands in the shape of peace: “I didn’t say that Spain is going to win, just that it is going to be a fun day…”
He then analyses the victory, the hard start and the logical aftermath: right now, it is difficult for anyone to catch him. Finally, the clouds in London are resting and the game is being played in the open air. “I am grateful to play outdoor“…”, he says. “He was dominating and playing very well, with his serve and his return. So I tried to shake off the nerves from the beginning and the 3-1 in the second set helped me; I tried to play my game and enjoy it. I think that, in general, I played a very good match,” he says before explaining how he finally unblocked the matter. “I tried to do different things, slices, drop shots and going to the net as much as I could; not playing long rallies, not getting into his game. Not going over 10 or 12 shots,” he reasons after a duel that started off crookedly. As happened three days earlier against Tommy Paul, it is a trailing start.
Alcaraz does not finish touching the ball well, too many concessions with the right. If throughout these days he had built his game on the power of the drivethis time the curled shot visits the corridor too often. The insistence on this option harms him. Always reactive, he manages to make amends for the first time – after the first break, fourth game – and does it again when the Russian has already managed to draw a considerable distance between one and the other, 5-2 up. However, he does not finish finding that speed that he likes so much and in front of him is that endless Medvedev, kilometer-long in limbs, who returns everything; the octopus with a thousand arms, the fronton in all its concept. Ode to concrete. When it dawns like this, it is a bad idea to meet him on a court. Protected on the baseline, he repels again and again: ball in, and another, and another, one more…
Tolga Akmen (EFE)
Alcaraz has managed to recover from the double bite, but he is still not quite in top form. The muses are resisting. The execution is not entirely clean. He jumps around to shake off the growing tension, he snorts when he makes a bad choice on a lob, and meanwhile Medvedev arrives late in the ride (second bounce, the chair umpire interprets) and receives a warning for repeating the offense after the award of the breaknow 5-5. He spits out a few demons, one of them more or less intelligible: Fuck you! (Fuck you!). He and the language, already a tradition. And Wimbledon knows a thing or two about customs, where everything is very serious and where outbursts are not allowed. So the Greek Eva Asderaki gets down from her chair and talks to the supervisor, an unusual scene. The story remains a simple warningbut the giant already knows that he shouldn’t cross the line. Not like that, Daniil. Behave yourself.
The wave of Nazaré
Already warned, the tug on the ear suits him like a charm and the fever gives him an advantage in the tie-break, in which, by the way, Alcaraz again takes another step back. The Russian hits an extraordinary return down the line, from the right, and he continues without calibrating it completely well. Those bits of dirt on the strings are still there and the choice, on several occasions, is not the best. An infinite number of ideas flow through his head at the same time and from time to time they get tangled up, too many possibilities at once. It is a question of order, of that little point of pause, of clarity. Of knowing what the moment demands. He makes a mistake. But then, once that terrain is given, he rectifies. Set below, a wave of Nazaré is forming that slowly swallows up his rival, outclassed in almost all the challenges at the net and without the vigor of before from the wall. Mentally, the Moscow native is suffering.
Medvedev, a labyrinthine tennis player, fears that the pulse will go down the same paths as it did a year ago, under that single direction that does not interest him at all. He prefers the mess, the entanglement. And the more, the better. Letting the Alcaraz take its course and grow: assured condemnation. That night in Australia with Nadal, forever embedded in the subconscious. And from the oscillation of the first set he is moving on to a more uniform development that is consuming him; he does not let go, he fights in the second set and remains there in the third, resilient, trying to get involved in the issue to change the dynamic and contain the water monster that is coming upon him; however, for some time now, the feeling has increased that the course of the matches depends almost entirely on what the racket of the Murcian, the young governor, decides. Sinner looks the one with all merit, but today, on the court, he commands.
He then throws a curled pass with his right (now yes) and dives in front of his bench, defiant, incandescent, challenging. Do you see it? It’s the roar of a champion. Here I am, this is mine. Who can beat me? There is no strategic or emotional variable that can revive Medvedev, who rows and rows without stopping, rebellious despite everything; resigned deep down to the crushing reality imposed these days by the talented player from El Palmar. The Muscovite throws a high ball into the defense to catch his breath and try to stop time, to see if in this way, by magic, everything changes, trusting that in the time it takes for the ball to fall, Alcaraz can suffer a short circuit; and the boy sees it so clearly, so easily, that he cushions badly and fails clamorously. But he looks at the first row and laughs. Unbeatable sign. He covers his head with his hands, “Swallow me earth, what have you done, Carlitos!”, and then goes back to his business.
The right-hander to the corner is so devastating that the opponent has no choice but to raise his thumb and acknowledge. The boy has arrived at a bad time, he surely thinks inside. Medvedev is not giving up even then, but in the atmosphere of La Catedral you can sense that it is just a matter of time before the scales tip in the direction that everything points to. And so it happens, as if it had to necessarily be that way, and the winner expresses himself respectfully and happily, as usual, savouring the moment but with the idea that the work is unfinished. There is one step left. On Sunday, against Djokovic or Musetti. He says that on the day of reflection he will play golf. “I am very, very bad, much worse than in tennis, I am not able to hit it in a straight line, but it helps me not to think and to relax,” he answers hungrily, one bite missing. “I feel that I am no longer new, I have already been in that position,” he resolves from the position he wanted. Once again, Alcaraz in a great final, with all that it usually entails.
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