Alcaraz challenges Djokovic: "It's admirable, but I'm already there"

Content, but very happy, Carlos Alcaraz jumps a couple of times to climb the steps of the podium from which he analyzes.

He has just beaten Rafael Nadal for the first time (6-2, 1-6 and 6-3, in 2h 28m), already starting as number six in the world and as the youngest semifinalist in the history of the Madrid Masters.

He has achieved what until now only the American Taylor Fritz had achieved, knocking down the Balearic this season, and he does not stop smiling.

However, the Murcian refers to an unfinished and imperfect work.

He wants to recover well the ankle that has been injured in a maneuver and the only thing that passes through his head is the semifinal duel (4:00 p.m., La 1 and Movistar) against number one, the Serbian Novak Djokovic.

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The match in pictures

"I feel emotion, a lot of emotion," he introduces.

“Because few players can say that they have beaten Rafa on the ground”, he continues before delving deeper and demanding himself, because only then will he be able to reach that golden spot that he has in mind.

“It was a difficult second set.

My ankle was bothering me, but it wasn't a reason to do the second set I've done.

I've gotten carried away.

I was thinking all the time: ankle, ankle, ankle... And it shouldn't be like that, so I said to myself: '

, if you're not going to retire, think about playing and fighting until the last ball.

That has helped me get out the way I did, ”he tells journalists, who record this May 6 as a date to save.

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Nadal accelerates the transition

After two confrontations, the one last year in Madrid and the one in March in Indian Wells, Alcaraz has managed to surrender Nadal and give an acceleration towards that transition towards which he has been aiming since he began to teach the leg in the elite.

Between one and the other, almost 17 years.

He is the first tennis player under the age of 20 to beat the Mallorcan on clay and the first Spaniard to beat him since Fernando Verdasco at the 2016 Australian Open;

From then on, Nadal had chained 25 consecutive wins until the young prodigy crossed his path again.

He resisted the one from Manacor to the onslaught of California, a preview, but not the latter in the Caja Mágica.

Before Alcaraz intervenes, Nadal does so with resignation.

The champion of 21 majors accepts defeat, and at the same time remembers that he arrived in Madrid barely having been able to train and after a month and a half pampering the rib that cracked in the previous confrontation with the semifinalist.

“It's easy to digest.

We knew what we were coming here for, and I don't take any credit away from Carlos for that.

I am not going to talk about my foot today [left, affected by a chronic injury].

It is a day to accept defeat naturally”, he specifies;

“I am happy for him.

He has been better than me in several facets of the game and I need to improve, as I have been anticipating these days.

Nothing has happened that was not logical."

What a way to close!

🔒

This was the point with which 🇪🇸 @alcarazcarlos03 certified his pass to the #MMOPEN semifinals

🎥 @TennisTV pic.twitter.com/0u6G8l1zo3

– #MMOPEN (@MutuaMadridOpen) May 6, 2022

Before landing in the Spanish capital, Nadal had already warned that he was working with a view to May 22, the day Roland Garros starts.

The Majorcan (35 years old) clarifies that he would have preferred to reappear in a more favorable terrain such as Estoril, the previous week, with less competitive demand (category 250, the fourth on the scale) and in a more controllable setting, at sea level.

"But I couldn't risk it," he says;

“What has been possible has been done, but it has not been a disaster.

I've competed with the right attitude, I've played three games and from then on I have to look forward with optimism.

One has to believe."

Beyond the effort made the day before, when he saved four match points and needed to invest more than three hours to beat Belgian David Goffin, the pulse against Alcaraz (19) has served as a thermometer.

He says that he must improve "the dynamism and the reading", as well as the depth of the hits;

In any case, he has been measured against "one of the fittest players in the world" and remarks that his objective was exclusively to win shooting, play matches and recover the rhythm of the competition: "My only dream is to be healthy in Paris.

It's about following through and accepting the challenge."

An adrenaline gamer

There, in the Bois de Boulogne, the king of clay will add another threat, that of Alcaraz.

The Murcian suffered a setback at the beginning of the tour, in Monte Carlo, but he celebrated at the previous station in Barcelona and now he is excited in the San Fermín neighborhood, a firm candidate for everything.

“Carlos can beat [Djokovic] perfectly.

It is true that he cannot have the slump that he had in the second set, but when his adrenaline rises he is practically unstoppable, ”says Nadal, while the heir will fulfill his desire to play against Djokovic this Saturday.

“What he has achieved is admirable”, values ​​the boy, present in three of the four semifinals of the last Masters 1000;

"But I'm already there.

I've already experienced difficult moments and it's not the first time I'm going to play in front of a lot of people, in a big stadium.

I am going to leave as I have left today;

I know there will be nerves, but I will try to give a high level.

I'm going to play to win, that's my essence”.

Pending the evolution of his ankle –“everything possible to be not one hundred percent, but two hundred percent”–, Alcaraz continues to fly and leave a mark in his own way, with daring and a unique style: “I have had a little of luck, but the big matches have to be closed in the best possible way, and even more so if you have Nadal in front of you”.

Nole: only 2h 49m on the track

Like the man from Manacorí, Djokovic also arrived in Madrid with the aim of adding minutes and sensations, without apparent great aspirations.

However, the king of the circuit will arrive immaculate at today's pulse.

He alone had to invest 2h 49m to avoid Gael Monfils and Hubert Hurkacz (6-3 and 6-4), and in the intermediate scale he did not even have to take the court, since Andy Murray was forced to resign. for sickness.

Nole, 34, will play his seventh semifinals in Madrid, where he has raised the title three times (2011, 2016 and 2019).

Separated from the competition until March due to his refusal to be vaccinated against covid, the Serbian has played four tournaments;

in the previous one, in Belgrade, he lost in the final against the Russian Andrei Rublev.

“He has a lot of special things in his game.

He is breaking a lot of records and today we are not used to seeing a teenager make the

.

The growth that Alcaraz has had during these last six months has been amazing”, Nole praised the Murcian.

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