The Spaniard, a great favorite against Ruud to become the youngest champion of the tournament. With Nadal and Medvedev injured and waiting for Djokovic, nobody dominates like him
In less than two months, Carlos Alcaraz He has offered sufficient reasons to be considered a tennis player capable of everything. Yes, it came very well from last season, which ended with him winning the NextGen ATP Finals, where he made it quite clear that the tournament was too small for him. Before he had knocked down for the first time Stefanos Tsitsipas at the US Open, already with his first title, the ATP 250 in Umag, in his pocket.
Alcaraz finished 2021 39th in the ranking and was running as one of the players to keep in mind, an 18-year-old boy with a huge competitive appetite and qualities to satisfy it. Another thing was to imagine that at this point in the season he would have already become the youngest winner of an ATP500, thanks to his meteoric triumph in Rio, and that with only seven Masters 1000 behind him he would be in a position to be the winner. precocious in Miami if he wins this Sunday (7:00 p.m., Let’s go) to the Norwegian Casper Ruudeighth seed, whom he beat 6-2 and 6-4 last year in the quarterfinals of the ATP 250 in Marbella.
It is not exclusively about that, which is already a lot, not even about his jump to eleventh place on the ladder or to a place below in the unlikely event of defeat, but about his imprint, the authority and the self-confidence with which he moves on the track, of the magic that comes from everything he does.
Solo Matteo Berrettiniwho needed five sets in the third round of the Australian Open, and Rafael Nadal, pushed to the limit in the Indian Wells semi-finals, have been able to neutralize him. The impressive succession of performances has aroused words of amazement.
“This boy is an animal”
“This kid is no joke. He’s the real deal and I don’t know if this is a surprise. I don’t know if we’ve ever seen someone this young, who you expect to win games like this this often. This kid is an animal,” he said. Andy Roddickformer number 1 in the world, after contemplating a new victory against Tsitsipas in Miami.
“He’s playing crazy tennis for his age. It’s really amazing how he plays, how he competes. He’s got an amazing career ahead of him,” he said. Hubert Hukaczhis last victim, after falling in the semifinals.
Alcaraz dazzles. And he does it at a time of certain misrule in the elite: waiting for the return of Novak Djokovic, absent in the first two Masters 1000 of the course due to his refusal to be vaccinated against Covid, on the clay court tour; with Nadal stranded after suffering a crack in a rib; with Daniil Medvedev operated on a hernia that will keep him out for at least a month, and with the generation called to lead the changing of the guard, which is made up of, among others, Alexander Zverev and Tsitsipas, arrested again. If Nadal was, until his defeat with Taylor Fritz in the final of Indian Wells and his new physical mishap, the most solvent proposal, winner in Australia of his twenty-first major, also champion in the ATP 5000 in Acapulco and in the ATP 250 in Melbourne, undefeated until the unfortunate outcome in the desert Californian, Alcaraz, winner in the three finals he has played, immediately takes over.
Miami, a tournament denied to the Spaniards in the men’s draw, where only Arantxa Sánchez Vicario raised the glass, on two occasions, is preparing to crown Alcaraz. Sergi Bruguerain 1997, Carlos Moyin 2003, David Ferrer, in 2013, and Nadal himself, up to five times, stayed in the final of the tournament. With the extraordinary credit accumulated at an astonishing rate, Charlie Brownas it is already known in Florida, has all the numbers to cross that border.
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