Carlos Alcaraz managed to hang on to win a five-set marathon semi-final against Alexander Zverev and reach the Australian Open semi-final in Melbourne on Friday.Hollie Adams/Reuters
At first it looked like another routine day at the office for Carlos Alcaraz. The brilliant young Spaniard was ahead two sets to none against his German rival Alexander Zverev. He needed to win just two more games to advance to his first championship match at the Australian Open.
That was what everyone expected of him. Alcaraz is ranked No. 1 in the world. At 22 he has won more titles than he has years on the planet: 24, including six Grand Slams. He has been in top form in Melbourne this month, knocking off his opponents one by one without losing a single set. It looked as if he would do the same to Zverev, the 6-foot-6 giant who is No. 3 in the world.
Though Zverev was putting up a good fight, taking Alcaraz to a set-deciding tiebreaker in the second, every indication was that Alcaraz would prevail. He certainly seemed to think so. His mood was so light that when he flicked an unlikely winner just over the net to win a point, he smiled and shook his head as if to say, “Damn, that was good.” Sometimes, he amazes even himself.
Alcaraz defeats Zverev in epic five-setter to reach Australian Open final
But at 4-4 in the third set of the best-of-five match he bent over and grabbed his right thigh. A murmur went through the crowd at Rod Laver Arena. Something was wrong.
In the points that followed, Alcaraz moved gingerly. Instead of leaping to serve, he hit the ball flat-footed.
Gone were the lunges and dashes across the court and body-twisting changes of direction that his fans have come to expect. Gone, too, were the smiles. The confident young man suddenly seemed tentative, almost lost, on the court.
He took a couple of breaks so a physio could work on his leg. He drank from a bottle of what commentators suspected was pickle juice, which is supposed to cure cramping. All of this infuriated Zverev, who complained to the referee that a leg cramp was no reason to delay the game.
Carlos Alcaraz, right, of Spain is congratulated by Alexander Zverev, left, of Germany following their semi-final match.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/The Associated Press
Zverev won the third set all the same. Then he won the fourth, prevailing in a close tiebreaker. Where once Alcaraz’s victory had seemed inevitable, Zverev’s now did. But nothing is inevitable when it comes to Carlos Alcaraz. He has won 15 of the 16 fifth sets he has played. In the epic five-setter he won against Jannik Sinner at the French Open last year – one of the best in tennis history – he came back after losing the first two sets.
Even hobbled, he was formidable, using the strength of his arms and upper body to power shots past Zverev. By the time the fifth set got under way, he seemed to be recovering. Though not his usual elastic self, he was moving more freely and getting to balls faster.
The crowd sensed they might be seeing another famous comeback. They commenced to roar. Alcaraz urged them on, gesturing “bring it on” till the stadium seemed to shake.
Even so, Zverev, playing as if his life depended on it, went ahead five games to three. He was just one game away from making the final and getting another chance to win the prize that has eluded him through all his years as a top player: a Grand Slam title.
By this time, the match had gone on for more than five hours. But Alcaraz, serving in the next game, brought the score back to 5-4, Zverev. Then he won another game – 5-5. Bedlam ensued. If the stadium’s retractable roof had been closed, it would have lifted off its moorings and spun out into Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay.
A few minutes later, it was match point for Alcaraz. When Zverev delivered a hard, wide serve, Alcaraz did what he does and lunged at it, somehow returning it to the German’s side of the net. Zverev hit a backhand to the open court. Alcaraz reached it at full sprint and hit a shot that dipped just over the net and thwarted his opponent.
That was it. Final score: 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), 6-7 (3-7), 6-7 (4-7), 7-5. Alcaraz fell onto his back as if he had won not just a semi-final, but the whole shooting works.
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Afterward, Zverev called the five-hour, 27-minute confrontation “one of the best battles there ever was in Australia.” As he put it, “We both went to our absolute limits.”
Alcaraz agreed. The only reason he hung on after his injury (which thankfully seems to have been temporary) was that, “I just hate giving up.”
His back-from-the-dead performance makes him the youngest man in the modern era of professional tennis to get to the final at all four of the Grand Slam tournaments. If he manages to win on Sunday, he will be the youngest to complete the career Grand Slam: winning all four.
After what he did on Friday, anything seems possible. But first he will have to get past the greatest tennis player of all time. Novak Djovokic proved once again that he deserves that title when he beat world No. 2 Jannik Sinner in an equally riveting five-set match that went until 1:30 in the morning and had the audience inside Rod Laver howling at the moon. Djokovic will be playing for his 11th Australian Open and his 25th Grand Slam title. What a battle that should be.