PARIS.- Carlos Alcarazone step away from his first Roland Garros: The Spanish tennis player won the fight among the main stars of the new generation against the Italian Jannik Sinner, in a semifinal this Friday that was decided in five sets, 2-6, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 and 6-3.
In Sunday’s final, the world number 3 will aspire to lift his first Musketeers Cup against the winner of the second semifinal, which will also be played this Friday by the German Alexander Zverev (4th) and the Norwegian Casper Ruud (7th).
“Today was one of the toughest matches I have played. The toughest I have played in my still short career with Jannik, against whom I hope to play many more,” Alcaraz declared at the end of the match. “There are times when you have to find joy in suffering,” he said.
Alcaraz, champion of the United States Open in 2022 and Wimbledon in 2023, can add a third Grand Slam title to his record, at just 21 years old.
But not just any Grand Slam, but a Roland Garros traditionally associated with the great feats of Spanish tennis, where his idol Rafael Nadal built his legend with 14 titles or where his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, who followed the match on a sunny day in one of the Philippe Chatrier boxes, was crowned in 2003.
Last year he had fallen in the semifinals against the future champion Novak Djokovic, but this time he managed to overcome that ceiling in a tournament to which he arrived as a great unknown after having barely been able to play in the European season on clay due to a forearm injury. right, which he maintains with a special bandage during all his matches in the French capital.
For her part, Sinner, 22 years old (she will turn 23 in August), could not emulate her compatriot Jasmine Paolini, who on Saturday will play the women’s final against the world number 1, the Polish Iga Swiatek.
Italian tennis will have to continue waiting to win the Roland Garros men’s tournament, something that only two of its representatives achieved in the past, the last of them Adriano Panatta in the distant 1976.
Sinner, however, will have the consolation of leaving Roland Garros as the new world number 1, after a great first half of the year, in which he especially won the titles at the Australian Open and the Miami Masters 1000.
At Roland Garros he had never come this far and he especially progressed compared to his performance last year, when he remained in the second round.
Game of highs and lows for each one:
The start of the match was brilliant for Sinner, who in the blink of an eye was already on track, with a 4-0 lead. Despite an attempted reaction from Alcaraz, the Italian ended up taking the set with a calm 6-2.
In the second everything seemed to follow the same script and Sinner distanced himself 2-0, with another break at the start, but there was a turning point and Alcaraz began to grow in the face of adversity. In an attack of pride he chained four games in a row and took control of a set that he ended up taking 6-3.
In the third, the Murcian distanced himself 2-1 by breaking his rival’s serve, but Sinner managed to come back and, with two breaks and maintaining his serve, he took a set 6-3 in which the Italian seemed to have discomfort in the left arm and legs, which is why he required the attention of the physiotherapist three times.
If until then both had been unstable with their serve, in the fourth set both were winning with their serve, until at 5-4 Alcaraz achieved a break to make it 6-4 and thus force the fifth set.
There the Spaniard soon stood out 3-0. Each one held serve from there and Alcaraz sealed his victory with 6-3, after 4 hours and 9 minutes of exciting battle against one of his best friends on the circuit.
Source: AFP
