Carlos Alcaraz advances at Wimbledon … with a little help from a friend
Carlos Alcaraz bulldozed past his American rival in order to catch the Red Fury of Spain march over the top of France and into the final of the European football championships on TV.
Pat Rafter and Tim Henman were in the Wimbledon locker room in the late 1990s. Frustrated by rain delays. They found a cricket bat. Tennis balls weren’t a problem. Perhaps someone made a tapey.
Furniture was moved and about 15 players walked in with the bowler. A slogger took the long handle to a full-pitched delivery and put a hole in the ceiling. That was stumps.
In that same locker room room at the All England Club on Tuesday, Carlos Alcaraz was preparing for his quarter-final against American Tommy Paul by chatting away on his phone to Spanish football captain Alvaro Morata.
If you reckon the Matildas are big, you should see, hear and feel the support for the Red Fury. They were about to face France in the semi-finals of the European championships, which is all anyone in London seems to be talking about.
Alcaraz wanted to make light work of Paul so he could watch the 8pm kick-off from Munich. “I talked with Alvaro … with Morata,” he said. “I wished them the best of luck.”
“I’m supporting Spain because it’s Spain and I have a really good relationship with a few players of the team. In particular, with Alvaro. He’s a really good friend. Right now it’s time to support them, as I know they are supporting me when I’m playing matches or I’m playing tournaments. It’s my turn.”
Alcaraz took the long handle to Paul. Once he settled from an erratic start, the defending champion hit such a flurry of winners that Paul became the Washington Generals. A stooge to Alcaraz’s Harlem Globetrotters routine.
Alcaraz faces Daniil Medvedev in Friday’s semi-finals after the Russian squeezed past a seriously ill world No.1 Jannik Sinner 6-7 (7/9), 6-4, 7-6, 2-6, 6-3.
Medvedev said of Alcaraz: “Against Tommy, I just saw a little bit of the ending. As soon as Carlos had a shot where you could go for it, he went for it, and he always put it in. He was a little bit on fire. You could see it by the score.
“That’s where it’s tough to play against him. You know whatever shot you hit, he can hit a winner from there. That’s pretty special because there are not many players like this. Carlos can do whatever he wants from any position – and that’s not easy to play against.”
Alcaraz said of Medvedev: “I’m glad that my opponents think that. That means they have to be really focused on every shot. It doesn’t matter on the attack position or on the defending position, they’re thinking that I’m able to be back in the point or be able to hit an unbelievable shot. To hit the winner. For me it’s great they are thinking about it.”
Alcaraz added: “I’m going to say the most difficult thing about facing Daniil, or the most special thing about him, is he can reach every ball. He is like a wall. Every ball bounces back. I feel like I can hit an unbelievable shot and the ball is going to bounce back. It’s difficult to play, thinking about that. I’m going to say that’s the most special thing about Daniil.”
Sinner was wobbling around like a drunken sailor against Medvedev. He was shaking and sweating bullets. He was pasty-faced with clammy lips and laboured breathing. He looked likely to pass out on his courtside seat. The Australian Open champion was taken to the locker room for blood-pressure tests. He was greener than Wimbledon’s grass around the gills and soon enough, he was out of The Championships.
“Already this morning, I didn’t feel great,” Sinner said. “Had some problems. Then with the fatigue, it was tough. I went off the court … I didn’t want to go off. The physio told me I’d better take some time because he watched me and I didn’t seem in shape to play.
“I was struggling physically. It was not an easy moment. I tried to fight with what I had today that’s it.”
sinner used to have a reputation for lacking ticker. In 2022, he withdrew from five matches in six months with hip, knee and ankle complaints. Asked if he was physically ill when he left the court, Sinner replied: “I didn’t vomit. This, no. But I took some time because I was dizzy quite a lot.
“Off the court I had a little bit the toughest time, maybe. When I went back, I tried my best. I was surprised that I pushed the match longer. I retired a lot two years ago.
“I don’t want to retire if it’s only a little bit of illness or sick or whatever. I was still in shape to play somehow but the energy level was not consistent. It was up and down … but you don’t want to retire in a quarter-final of a grand slam.”
The giant-killing run of New Zealand qualifier Lulu Sun came to a crashing halt. The feel-good story of the Championships ran out of puff in a 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 loss to Donna Vekic. In her 41st major and 10th Wimbledon, after struggling since knee surgeries in 2021, the sobbing, trembling 28-year-old Croatian was through to her first major semi-final, against Italian Jasmine Paolini.
“There was a couple of times in my career that I didn’t want to play tennis anymore,” Vekic said. “Most of you know that it was after my surgeries, but actually there was one recent one. It was the Thursday before Roland Garros this year that we had scheduled practice. I arrived to the club.
“I told (coach) Nick (Horvat), ‘Listen, I want to pull out of the French Open. I want to go home. I want to take a longer break. I didn’t have any energy, any motivation to keep practising or keep pushing. I felt like the last couple months I’d given everything for tennis and I wasn’t getting the results I expected.
“It was a very, very tough moment. It’s crazy how in tennis things can turn so fast. Now I’m in the semi-finals. I think not just in tennis, in life, things can turn pretty fast.”
Spain beat France 2-1 to reach the Euros final. Which will be held on Sunday. The same day as the gentlemen’s singles final at Wimbledon. Alcaraz and Morata could be hoisting significant trophies on the same evening. Alcaraz’s phone dinged once more on Tuesday. Again it was the Red Fury’s skipper. “He told me, ‘Okay, I’m going to talk to you again’,” Alcaraz said. “Because every time that we spoke, we won. It’s kind of lucky.’”
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