In the early years of Carlos Alcaraz’s young career, he relished making the impossible commonplace. He consistently performs at such a high level, learns from his mistakes extremely quickly and often finds solutions even when faced with difficulties.
This time, he couldn’t find a way. Despite a late comeback in the death, the second seed’s poor start left him with too much to do against the excellent Alexander Zverev, who maintained a high level throughout four sets to create had one of his best Grand Slam performances, winning 6-1. , 6-3, 6-7(2), 6-4, entering the Australian Open semifinals.
As a result, sixth seed Zverev and third seed Daniil Medvedev will fight for a spot in Sunday’s final. Earlier in the day, Medvedev kept his cool in the uncomfortable Melbourne heat to beat a resurgent Hugh 7-6 (4), 2-6, 6-3, 5 in the Melbourne semi-finals. Hubert Hurkacz. -7, 6-4 win.
While Alcaraz enters Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday night with strong hopes of beating lower-ranked opponents, their history underscores the potential dangers ahead. Zverev has a slim record of 4 wins and 3 losses against Alcaraz. Most notably, the German defeated Alcaraz at the 2022 French Open in one of the best matches of his career.
Zverev is in a similar mood to 2022, swinging freely against an opponent who is very much expected to beat him. Alcaraz, meanwhile, was inconsistent from the start and quickly conceded the first break point with a disastrous, error-prone start.
Zverev was outstanding throughout, coming up from behind the baseline, making mistakes on defense, and choosing his moments well to move inside the baseline and attack. Alcaraz simply couldn’t cut down on his error count and ended the first set with two winners and 10 unforced errors. After seemingly starting to find his footing early in the second set, the match was quickly over as his unforced errors piled up again.
It wasn’t until the final push, when Zverev served at 5-3, that Alcaraz found a brief moment of inspiration. He made a wonderful counter attack and sealed the goal as the crowd erupted. His crowd cheered him on as he drew the Germans to 5-5 before heading into the tie-break. He ended the match with a stunning tie-break, relentlessly attacking and advancing to steal the set.
The momentum turned and Alcaraz gave everything he had for much of the fourth set. Under intense pressure from the start, Zverev continued to serve brilliantly, holding on to Alcaraz long enough in a frantic cat-and-mouse stand-off initiated by the Spaniard until Alcaraz’s Levels dropped, and eventually he emerged victorious in dramatic fashion.
On the eve of the first round of the Australian Open, the Berlin Criminal Court announced that Zverev will stand a public trial from May 31 on charges of physically abusing his ex-girlfriend Brenda Patia and damaging her health. . The trial is currently planned to overlap with the French Open and Wimbledon. Zverev denies the accusations.
In the first men’s semifinal of the day, Medvedev broke serve in the fourth set to secure a convincing four-set victory over Hurkacs, before Hurkacs went deep to recover the break point and press on into the fifth set. . As the match dragged on, Medvedev began to struggle in the heat, but he found a solution.
Over the course of 11 dramatic days, Medvedev endured a grueling five-set battle in suffocating heat that lasted until 3:40 in the morning. “I’m devastated in the dressing room after every game,” he said. “But we did a good job. One day off was probably enough to feel good the next day. So far, the game has started well and that’s all that matters.”
