Carlos Alcaraz armed himself with patience and ended up wetting the gunpowder of the Chilean Nicolás Jarry. “I knew my opportunities would come,” mused the Murcian, while he savored the trap he had just dodged in the third round of Wimbledon (6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3 and 7-5). An obstacle in the shape of a cannon and with the surname of Jarry, which forced the Spaniard to battle for almost four hours to return for the second consecutive year to the round of 16 of the British Grand Slam.
Alcaraz needed an exercise in sanity and continuous waiting to knock out a tennis player with a more than clear scheme. “I know that he is human and I know that I can hurt him,” the Chilean commented in the preview, with the good precedent of the semifinals in Rio de Janeiro in February, when he did not win, but took a set from Murcia. That, in addition, was on clay, the surface on which the Chilean grew up, but not the one that best impacts his game, based on a powerful serve that benefited from the rain in London.
With the sky black and the raindrops falling, the roof of the center court closed and Jarry’s whipping began to sound. A spectacle of serves and lightning that pushed the Spaniard to refine his senses and have to be permanently connected to what was happening on the court. Any failure was amplified and could cost a set or who knows if more. There the effectiveness in the first set of Alcaraz was key, who had a chance to ‘break’ and earned him the first set. It was the way to go, hold serve and bide your time, but the match blurred and Jarry emerged as a threatening force.
He took the lead 1-4 in the second set and forced Alcaraz to come back, until the tiebreaker, a scenario in which the Chilean, after saving a set ball with a more than dubious volley, tipped the set in his favor and unleashed the doubts . The Murcian, for the first time in the tournament, dropped a set. He played a lesson in character and to show that on this surface he also knows how to turn the other cheek. He had to endure the downpour of cannon fire and wait for it to subside. Or dry it.
Tercer set high
And Alcaraz made an excellent third set, with only five unforced errors and with the feeling that he was hitting the table and was killing the game. However, Jarry decided not to leave. He stuck to his swinging momentum from serve and amassed a 0-3 lead, normally deadly on the fastest surface of all. But one thing happens, that Jarry is not definitive. His game on the net is poor and his forehands, when they don’t go up to the desired height, were a drama. He self-destructed with childish blows and incomprehensible errors and allowed a hard-headed Alcaraz to resurface with a 7-2 run.
Victory and a ticket to the round of 16, a round in which the first coconut in the draw will await him; the Italian Matteo Berrettini, who got rid of the German Alexander Zverev in three sets. One more level on the way to Wimbledon and that will measure many of the expectations of the Murcian, who repeats his presence among the 16 best in the tournament for the second consecutive year. Last year Jannik Sinner stopped him here, now it’s time to go one step further.
2023-07-08 21:53:33
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