He beat the German in another five-set battle: 5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 and 6-0 / He is the youngest to reach this round of the tournament since 1963
Juan Carlos Ferrero placeholder image and Albert Molina, his coach and his press officer, could not hide their smile. The boy had just been 4-1 up with double break in the second set, but I wasn’t looking for the chair. He was still on the field, as if he were not on the scoreboard, as if he did not want to stop and continue shooting at his opponent. This time, unlike the first set, he was not going to miss the substantial advantage. Pure momentum, adolescent energy, Carlos Alcaraz placeholder image he had regulated himself better, he had learned quickly from the initial stumble. He incorporated the cut backhand to the wide repertoire, tempered his game and the match was equal.
Nothing was going to slow him down on his way to the quarterfinals. He would lose the third, he would start by giving up the serve in the fourth, but he would come back until he claimed victory and become, at 18, the youngest quarter-finalist of this tournament in the professional era. The last to achieve it had been the Brazilian Thomaz Koch, also at the United States Open, in 1963.
He won 5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 and 6-0, in three hours and 31 minutes of a tough match, in which both players needed physical attention. It was the German who came out the worst, unable to hold on to the boy’s magnificent reaction. Two days after achieving the most important victory of his life, appeasing Stefanos Tsitsipas, number three in the world, in the Arthur Ashe, there is the logical risk of implosion. The responsibility of coming out as the favorite against an opponent who had little to do with the cache of the man he had knocked down to jump to the top of all the sports pages or fall into a certain complacency could weigh on him.
Peter Gojowczyk He appeared, like him, for the first time in the eighth of a Grand Slam tournament, but he did so already many kilometers behind. At 32, and after going through the top 40 Three seasons ago, the tennis player from Munich had to win the entry into the final table in the previous one. He is not, by any means, a star in the making, but a player who is almost back, without having left a bright trail in his already long career on the slopes.
Defensive arguments
Oblivious to any self-indulgent attitude, the Spaniard began as a shot, with a double break that placed him in the best disposition to win the first set. Gojowcyk did not falter, more refined at the end in a set where there were seven service breaks, four in favor of the German, who made profitable his first option to place himself ahead in the match. It was a wild confrontation. After the four hours and seven minutes of the duel against Tsitsipas, the Spaniard had resources to face another different challenge, the one posed by a quasi-anonymous player for the fans, willing to seek his luck with the unleashed violence of his flat shots.
This time it was also time to resist. Forced in many moments to quell the gale that was upon him, Alcaraz showed that he also knows how to drive in third and handle with skill when curves come. He did so until he resurfaced in a very delicate situation, already two sets to one down and after delivering the service in the first game of the fourth. He saved a total of 11 break balls, a sign of his enormous mettle throughout the game. In his first US Open, he is already in the top eight. The winner of the match between Felix Auger-Aliassime and Frances Tiafoe. There are only four of the top 10 seeds and seven of the 20. The tournament is open. only Novak Djokovic, even without showing his best version, seems above the rest.
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