At the gates of the Champions League final, Philippe Chatrier becomes the prelude to Saint Denis: “Go for number 14, Carlitos!
He is a madridista, Carlitos is a madridista, he is a madridistaaaaa!
Long live Spain!
Paris is Spanish!
A gang of six Real Madrid fans, installed next to the press box on the center court, rave from start to finish, until Carlos Alcaraz defeats Sebastian Korda (6-4, 6-4, 6-2, in 2h 06m) and achieves the pass to the round of 16.
They proudly wear the badges of their club and find the echoes of other fans who, taking advantage of the football visit to the French capital, have also dropped by the Bois de Boulogne.
They show off their patriotism and their colors, and they make themselves felt in the refined tennis atmosphere, in which the euphoria is expressed in another way.
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At the top, another group dressed completely in white harangues their own and marks the rhythm with a bass drum: “Long live Murcia!
Eat it with potatoes!
Lala-lara-lara-lalaaaaa, Alcaraaaaaz, I looooove you!”
And the man from Murcia, who in addition to being a Whites fan, is eager for revenge, to progress in the tournament and incidentally hit back at the beginning of April in Monte Carlo, strikes with everything against Korda, the only player who has been able to beat him in this spectacular track on clay: 13 consecutive victories, two trophies (Barcelona and Madrid) and, who knows, maybe a third.
So he trusts.
The American (21 years old and 30th in the world) offers a reply, because he has a lot of class, his dose of genetics – his father Peter reached the final in 1992 and won the Australian Open in 1998 – and many arguments on the racket, but the tide takes it ahead.
Alcaraz holds his pulse and finds his chin in the second set, when the North American pushes hard and threatens to break;
however, the danger comes back to him like a boomerang and the one who loses the service is him, and the Spaniard knows how to tie the duel in the third round.
Alcaraz, then, already shines in the fourth round.
After the scare suffered on the previous scale, in which he saved a match point against Albert Ramos and saw the fire too close, the boy from El Palmar unfolds with poise and skill to achieve a victory (31 this season, for only three defeats) that forces the revision and places him again in a privileged space, along with the outliers: at 19 years old, Alcaraz – quoted on Sunday with the Russian Karen Khachanov – is the eighth youngest finalist at Roland Garros since that Novak Djokovic reached the milestone at the same age in the 2006 edition. If he decided to definitively pulverize the
establishment
and win the Musketeers Cup on June 5, he would be the earliest to do so since Rafael Nadal triumphed in 2005;
also, 19 years old.
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