Alcaraz overcomes the abyss against Ramos based on epic

The release comes in the form of an

, big time.

Actually, it could not be otherwise.

Not when it comes to Carlos Alcaraz, who chases the ball like a cheetah, repels the blows of Albert Ramos and, based on faith, heart and an exacerbated conviction, achieves the point (and the

) with which he manages to break the straitjacket after 4h 34m of give and take.

In the end, he is left standing – quoted this Friday with Sebastian Korda, the only one who has managed to beat him this season on lardillo dust – and curses the Catalan, hitting the ground with a racket and frustration.

He has done practically everything well, but the avalanche takes him ahead: 6-1, 6-7 (7), 5-7, 6-2 and 6-4.

The Murcian escapes, having had a bad time on his feet.

He has been one trifle away from leaving the French great, but his light prevailed, a radical dichotomy: as many winners (74) as errors.

”I knew that if I saved that match point I would have my chances, and in the

I was very aggressive.

That ball has changed everything”, says the flirtatious Simonne Mathieu, built next to the greenhouses of the Jardin des Serres, at the foot of the track;

“This would not have been possible without this audience, because I feel at home.

I feel their support at every point”, he adds gratefully after an episode resolved on the basis of pride, in which Ramos has subdued him and he, at times, has lost the shine of this thunderous year that is summed up in 30 wins, 12 successive in land since opening the melon in the Godó.

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Alcaraz and the squad that hides behind his success

Alcaraz had started like the angels, dominating the situation and imposing his cruising speed, overwhelming Ramos with clean and deep right hands that allowed him to win the first set in just 26 minutes.

The Murcian had taken the reins perfectly, or so it seemed.

So far, everything in order for him, but not for Ramos, a veteran who competes silently, like good Japanese electronics.

Catalan does not make the noise, but he knows like few others the demanding codes of the clay.

Just take a look at his track record: four trophies, all four on clay, seasoned with six more finals.

Serious thing.

The last title came in February.

He raised it in Córdoba, Argentina, and then got into a hole.

That is to say, nothing foreshadowed that it could get Alcaraz into a real mess, taking into account the layout of one and the other in the spring tour, inverted paths: with the exception of the third round in Monte Carlo and the fourth in Estoril, Ramos headed the start to the first in the rest of the tournaments (Marrakech, Barcelona, ​​Madrid, Rome and Geneva).

However, a Grand Slam is a Grand Slam, and it hides endless mines along the way.

The first week is full of ambushes and there are not a few who step on the stocks or look out over the precipice.

The night before, the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas, finalist last year, had escaped from a limit situation – two sets down – and almost in parallel, it had been Alexander Zverev – the same, annulling a match point – who had saved the match. neck by the hair

There is no truce at Roland Garros.

Ramos, a hard-working tennis player, intelligent left-hander, skilled and more on sand, knows it well, and Alcaraz is discovering it, who in the second round let a couple of trains escape –double

option , in two consecutive turns to the rest– and put his feet in a real bog.

The opportunity wasted, further development became a labyrinth with no doors for him.

A bad trip.

Alcaraz usually accompanies his game with a cheerful expressiveness, but on this occasion he gesticulated, protested, flagellated himself, reaching the soliloquy more than once, talking to himself and making more than one fuss towards his bench: “But what are you doing? Carlos, what are you doing?

And there, in the

, long faces of circumstances, gestures of concern.

Not only did the boy not manage to turn the story around, but Ramos pressed and pressed, twisting the ball with that heavy

that revolutionizes and shoots the ball, making it take height, very difficult to counter if he has the day.

And the Catalan had it.

Ramos took the litigation to the place that most interested him, the place where the 15-year difference between one and the other is accentuated.

Towards doubt.

Suddenly, a huge question mark in Paris, in that head to do.

He managed to make Alcaraz lose his spark and rush from making him think and think so much, from turning the jar around.

Too much anxiety, excessive restlessness.

Old school, cunning from Mataró.

Eyes rolling and fists clenched: “Come on!

Go!

Go!".

Difficult to stop a tennis player when he is like this.

On the third attempt he equalized the pulse and then charged like a Miura, but Alcaraz, already a centimeter from the abyss, turned around.

Lord big game in the Mathieu.

The Murcian saved a match point and then it was the Catalan who aborted three sets, but in the tiebreaker the young man grew and was superior.

So start over, heads or tails.

And hearts to a thousand.

Ramos did not give up, neither did Alcaraz: from 3-0 adverse to 4-3 in his favour, and from there to 4-4.

More and more firewood in the oven, from slap to slap the two until the final turn came, those strides from one side to the other of Carlitos, that survival instinct, that faith and that volley to the net of the rival who decided.

The track upside down, shaking in the Bois de Boulgone.

At the moment of truth, rebelliousness weighed more than experience and Paris, which knows something about epics and daydreams, begins to really see how the heir spends them.

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