Hours before the match, during the warm-up, Carlos Alcaraz rewarded the hundreds of fans waiting for him with a few of his tricks. Before starting, he mimicked some golf drives with the racket; then he chained some exaggerated drop shots while running, and, to finish, he started tapping a million times with the edge. He was applauded, of course. The usual magic.
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Despite the four months off, he has already settled into his sweet Grand Slam routine at this US Open: that joy of his as he advances through rounds, that enjoyment as the days go by, that way of turning a tournament into a familiar place. The victories are still somewhat harder because the inactivity is noticeable and his right wrist needs time to recover all its automatisms, but the dynamic is the same. If next Sunday the 13th he ends up lifting the title, it will not be a surprise. Quite the opposite. This Friday he overcame the Chinese Yibing Wu in the third round by 6-3, 6-4, and 6-1 to reach the round of 16, where on Sunday he will face the American Tommy Paul.
If in the first matches of this edition, especially in the debut, he could be seen tense, with “many, many nerves,” as he admitted, now he moves with lightness, with ease, with another flow. There are doubts about his game, but fewer and fewer about his recovery. Against Wu, after having fun with the crowd in the previous session, he appeared smiling at Arthur Ashe. He looked like he was enjoying being there, how things were going, feeling like Carlos Alcaraz again in a Grand Slam.
A small crisis
In the match he celebrated the successes and cursed the mistakes, as always, but he also finished with the freshness that usually accompanies him in big tournaments. In the first set he was a whirlwind. He was confident with his serve – reaching 77% first serves and ending at 65% -, let his forehand run, dominated the court, and forced Wu to always play against the grain. Then, when the match got messy, when the Chinese clung to the court and the rallies started to lengthen, Alcaraz knew how to solve the difficulties.
Because Wu is one of those uncomfortable opponents who turn an apparently easy victory into an exercise in patience. He defends, runs, returns one more ball, then another, and has enough courage not to give anything away. Everything then depended on Alcaraz: his ability to accelerate, to find the gap, not to despair when the point lasted longer than expected. And, as happened in the second round against Jaime Faria, there was a moment when Alcaraz himself seemed to realize he had gotten into trouble. “I can’t be playing like this,” he shouted. But he insisted. And insisted. Until he found the necessary shots.
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“It was a match with a very high pace. Wu has a lot of rhythm, the ball runs a lot, it was very difficult to control it. I am proud because I was there, I played aggressively at the beginning and then I was smart in the difficult moments. Could I have played better? Yes, but the level was good,” Alcaraz said at the end of the match before adding: “I am better than I thought. I am recovering very well after the matches and I think I have caught the competition rhythm. Against Paul I can’t make so many mistakes, but I am ready.”
Paul, a tough test
He is at that point. It’s not that he already plays like before, because he still doesn’t. Nor that his forehand has recovered all its power, because there are still moments of inaccuracy. But he behaves like himself again when things get complicated. He knows how to suffer again. He finds solutions again. The setting of a ‘big’ tournament feels natural to him again and that can be a lot. On Sunday, against Tommy Paul, he will face the first tough test of that process.
The American is an opponent against whom Alcaraz never feels completely comfortable, despite dominating the head-to-head. This very season he already beat him in the third round of the Australian Open, in three sets, but that match belongs to another life: then the Spaniard arrived with rhythm, confidence, and accumulated matches. Now he comes from another place. That is why the duel will have a special value. Against Paul he will have to show more than he has shown, but meanwhile, there he is again. Smiling on the court, doing tricks with the racket, celebrating points, and walking through the US Open as if he had never left. The sweet routine.
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