Bercy’s vertigo consumes Alcaraz again

Once again, the dizzying reality of Paris-Bercy. Once again, Carlos Alcaraz falls and El Palmar’s player leaves disgruntled, defeated at night in the round of 16, after the struggle: too much ground given up at the beginning and an incomplete comeback at the end. Heads or tails, the definitive outburst of Ugo Humbert weighs more and with the victory already declared, 6-1, 3-6 and 7-5 (in 2h 16m), the ghosts flutter around the Spaniard for another year. There is something about the happy track that resists it again and again. It’s no secret, really. The metrics establish that there is no faster surface – 45.5 according to the Court Pace Index (CPI), two and a half points higher than Cincinnati—and still hasn’t quite settled its game or found the formula. Consequently, another early goodbye and the bad streak continues: they have never progressed beyond the quarterfinals. There is also a threat: if the German Alexander Zverev reached the final on Sunday, he would lose second place in the world.

There is something paradoxical in the scene, since the fastest tennis player of the moment and who usually draws faster than anyone else does not quite adjust to a treacherous and reflex scenario, which admits no doubt and greatly penalizes any mistake. Inertia does not usually allow returns. Not this time either. He had twice tilted Humbert in two meetings, both this year, but the fall is added to that of 2021 against Ugo Gaston, that of 2022 against Holger Rune and that of a year ago against Roman Safiullin. Alcaraz comes out scalded again, knowing that the match offered a trap and that it could happen. The French roof, a bad ally for him. It stings at number two, with his sights now on the Turin Masters (from 10 to 17) and resigned: he cannot decipher a territory that has surely generated more headaches than any other. The other Parisforbidden for him. Although remember: only David Ferrer, meteorite in 2012, managed to win the trophy.

In the blink of an eye, 26 minutes to be exact, Alcaraz has already lost the first set and is suffering again in Bercy, territory of bad sleep and nightmares for him. The French stands blow against him and Humbert, son of the indoor format, he aims, unblocks and recreates himself by drawing angles that progressively punish his rival, run over by the ball throughout that first set. Two days before, the Murcian admitted to being uncomfortable on a court in which the trajectory of the ball loses a certain logic and tricks, flies and attacks the body as it bounces, without respite or mercy. Slap tennis. And there, in that terrain of vertigo, the Frenchman moves like a fish in water. With bites, he has already eaten the first portion of the match and the Spaniard, 15 errors, laments, complains, threatens with the racket. “No!”.

Ugly panorama, then. Humbert’s darts go from top to bottom and Alcaraz cannot find a way to counter properly, no matter how much he flexes, marks his supports and pumps. Nothing works out, everything goes wrong. Bleed service. Not a single point has been taken in his mouth with the second serves until, finally, with that first part of the result already given, he finds a remedy in the slowdown. Instead of insisting on hand-to-hand combat, he avoids the trap and slows down his shots, making the Frenchman think more than necessary. He denies and closes the door, but with that pause point his game has lost sharpness and effervescence, and the curves begin. “The guy is going to hesitate, he’s going to hesitate, so you have to be there!” Juan Carlos Ferrero transmits from the bench, fine in his interpretation, because that’s how it happens.

Alcaraz’s insistence is rewarded and once the break was achieved, 4-2 in the second set, he definitively regained his faith. Suddenly, the ball is no longer so uncontrollable or so hostile, and every blow from the Frenchman he reacts with horses and more horses, races and more races to get here and there, wherever. There is no greyhound like him on the circuit and the stands that once booed him, today recognize him and applaud his rides to the incomprehension of Humbert, the player with the best ranking (18) from his country, two positions above Arthur Fills (20): But who the hell are you going with?, the local seems to say to the crowd, who sing the Free from desire and makes the wave as the grief balances and intensifies, even forces towards resolution. It can fall either way now.

“Remembering where you usually serve in screwed up moments, huh? Come on! Let’s go for it!” Ferrero shouts. And his boy applies himself amidst the tension, increasing the precision and the percentages, exerting increasing pressure on Humbert to which the Frenchman, fired up and determined, reacts with fortitude, walking on the wire and risking when he had to to stay alive, resisting and replicating No one gives up here. This is the rogue night of Bercy and everything comes and goes, oscillating territory, and between the swell and the fervor of the parishioners, the final push of the Gaul prevails. The Murcian loses a point of lucidity and ends up stepping on the stocks, with a long backhand that tips the balance towards his opponent and highlights the difficulty of succeeding in a framework in which everything goes fast, very fast, at full speed. The wild west of the 12th arrondissement of Paris.