This is what master territory is like, where everything can look very black and suddenly change direction. Finger to the ear of Carlos Alcaraz, who smiles, celebrates and asserts himself after beating the Russian Andrey Rublev 6-3 and 7-6(8), in 1h 36m, a victory of guts and arrests; passed the test of maturity to stay alive in this Masters Cup that was evaporating for him and that now offers the light that did not exist: “I could be better, I’m not going to lie, but I’ve been having a hard time this last week, thinking about that I was sick and that I couldn’t play well, blah-blah-blah… So today I wanted people to go home happy, because on the first day [contra Casper Ruud] I felt like I didn’t play good tennis, but today I wanted to try and I think I succeeded.”
Brave, proud and satisfied with a job well done, number three, with a fuchsia plaster on the partition to counteract the cold he is carrying, remains on his feet and will play everything on Friday, on the third and final day of the group stage . It will be against Alexander Zverev, the test is even superior. He will have to overcome the German, scheduled tonight (8:30 p.m.) with the Norwegian Ruud, the executioner of the first day, and wait for what the numbers may dictate. That is, win and calculator, unless the Nordic strikes the bell this evening. It is not ideal, but it is what was intended after Monday’s skid. “My options are there, so we are going to fight with everything,” he says on the track; “I felt good from the bottom, running. I had several options in my head in case I didn’t feel good moving and running, but I’m happy that option A, of running and scoring points from the back, turned out well,” he adds.
Before the distribution of spankings begins, Alcaraz feels his face again and again, trying to adjust the adhesive tape that, theoretically, or so the experts point out, widens his nostrils to inhale a few extra wisps of oxygen. His nose is red, just like it was first thing in the morning during the warm-up, when he reached for the tissues to blow his nose over and over again, and sneezed. At this time of day, however, the eucalyptic shot and the drugs seem to have at least given him enough impetus to compete head-to-head with Rublev, who, by the way, does not proceed in the apparently most intelligent way. The Russian does not think, the Russian executes.
Instead of slowing down the action, including visits to the chair, he is in a hurry to serve, to hit and for everything to end as soon as possible. The desire that flows through there, surely. So the development is harming him and the one who is gaining ground and the one who feels more and more comfortable and the one who is finding the best place in the game is Alcaraz, who probably did not expect to find that door open. Wide open, too. Or maybe yes. Rublev, well gifted from a technical point of view, has a few strategic flaws and does not know what it is about temperance, reading and balance that requires a game of patience and as psychological as tennis. His coach, Fernando Vicente, insists and insists on it, but there is no way.
‘Ruble’ and lines
Having received a flat right hand that kisses the line on one side, the man from Moscow turns his neck towards his bench and disapproves. He’s a bag of nerves. On the other hand, Alcaraz continues to feel comfortable and begins to like himself, increasingly in tune and comfortable in a duel that flows exactly through the channel that interests him most. The first set has already been won and the Murcian juggles the racket before subtracting, without trusting himself but transmitting the message to his opponent that he is going to be there. So Rublev goes to the locker room and tries to calm down, lest he explode again (there have been so many…) and the outcome is premature, deeply contrary to his interests: he also competes on the wire.
Meanwhile, Alcaraz’s slender figure is drawing aesthetically and plastically perfect positions, foreshortening and shots, and the Spaniard continues to apply himself in defense, growing in the mud; imbued, perhaps, by that spirit Topuria which he says has inspired him like no other in this prolific and successful year, whether in California, Paris, Wimbledon or Beijing. He does not renounce now the master investiture in Turin, the master glory denied to national men’s tennis since Àlex Corretja captured it in ’98, Hannover, already distant from the anniversary. And there he presses, with his chest held up and his nose obstructed by his runny nose. It’s a bad time, Ferrero said a day before, but there is no escape and we can only win.
He adjusts his bangs – a tic definitely incorporated – and tries to ensure that the speed printed by Rublev does not take away from him the space he has gained, solid from the baseline and, this time, nothing to do with the erratic nature of the first day, fine with the left : four of them leave the rival stunned, who looks at his team again and asks for mercy with the gesture: it-can’t-be. What have I done to deserve this? Why, friends, why? Meanwhile, Alcaraz serves wonderfully, he hydrates and tries to take advantage of every last drop of energy that he has been safeguarding since Monday, because everything is not enough for that big body polished with nutrition, supplements and scientifically applied loads. When it seemed like it was going away, the ball bounced gently on an angle and the good guy Rublethat’s what they call it since boxeshe frowns and complies because he has no other choice.
His right foot rattles against the floor like a drilling machine, a sign of the crackling that exists in there, and Bernardes asks from the top of the chair to the audience to please deactivate the flashes on the phones because it bothers the tennis players and the Russian, contained but effervescent, it can come out from anywhere. “You can’t control that“, they tell Rublev, who, effectively, neither can control nor has any responsibility for those constant and treacherous landings of the ball on the line that drive anyone crazy. Even so, the redhead maintains his style and, on this occasion, does not explode, but the outcome is what the course of the fight indicated, not without an exciting final tangle in the tiebreaker of the second set. Under that circumstance, Alcaraz’s determination prevails and what seemed very dark yesterday, exposure to kotoday it is not so much anymore.
