This is not going to be like this, Carlos Alcaraz (19) tells himself while the physiotherapist manipulates his right thigh: the Murcian has been determined to recover the leadership of the ATP circuit.
Alcaraz has become stubborn, because he is looking for the back of Novak Djokovic.
There are reasons to interpret his embarrassment.
If this final is signed up, the second he has played in a week, the teenager from Murcia and the Serb will wake up this Monday tied at the top of the world ranking (although the Serb will continue to be the leader because he breaks the number of victories in ATP Finals, Grand Slams and Masters 1,000).
Tonight, on the clay of the ATP Rio 500, Alcaraz restrains himself and bites his lips with the intention of blurring his muscular problems in his right thigh (he wears it bandaged for a quarter of an hour, then removes the bandage). He limps and barely runs, and his attitude draws parallels with some passages in the career of Rafael Nadal, another tennis player who never compromises, not even when he tears an abdominal or sprains an ankle.
However, Alcaraz’s circumstances condition his game.
To overcome Cameron Norrie, the second final between the two in a week, the Murcian must transform his game: a committed tennis player, he tries to shorten the points. He gets involved in the serve-volley, he can no longer run or move. He’s enough of long rallies.
At times, his serves, placed and efficient, and his determination in moments of pain, already in the third set, overwhelm the British left-hander, who must reflect: he does not want to be a victim of the Murcian again, he will not accept a repeat what had happened in the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires, the other Sunday.
(It is the first time that two tennis players reissued an ATP final since Djokovic and Murray had done it in May 2016).
Alcaraz, who is defending his Rio de Janeiro title in 2022, is not giving up either. With this, there are nine games in this demanding 2023.
Until now, he had won the first eight, a warning to his rivals, who were watching how the teenager from Murcia persisted in getting rid of his physical problems, that muscle tear in his thigh that has kept him out of the game for three months, or the pain that They have reappeared tonight.
However, the pain condemns the Murcian. In the Quadra Guga Kuerten, he suffered his first defeat of 2023. He lost 5-7, 6-4 and 7-5 against Norrie (27), a tennis player who grows and grows, since he is not only 12th in the world, but also also a magnificent semifinalist in the last Wimbledon, a gift for the senses of the demanding British parish, recently comforted by the regeneration of Andy Murray.
The chronicle lurches, like the party.
In the run-up, the Murcian solidifies his service, he looks like a peacock. His range of resources is infinite: Alcaraz is a gamer. He volleys, lobs and drop shots, stretches or shortens points, and only slacks on the cut backhand, perhaps his most improvable shot.
Managing these resources, Alcaraz flies over the Corcovado and the Sugar Loaf.
He broke Norrie’s serve in the last phase of the first set, and from there, Castilla is wide.
That’s what it looks like.
Until that moment, Alcaraz seems like a cyclone. He has never shaken his pulse, and less at the beginning of the second set, when he saves two breaking balls and accelerates to 2-0 and, then, to 3-0.
What happens is that, from there, things get rare.
Alcaraz feels pain in his thigh, a recurring problem that had already appeared the day before, in his semifinal against Nicolás Jarry.
Suddenly, Alcaraz’s game fades and Norrie comes up, who chains four consecutive games and takes over the game.
There, Alcaraz begins to misconfigure. He calls the physical therapist. He changes the strategy. He no longer tolerates rallies, he only accepts the serve-volley.
Norrie doesn’t quite know what to do, so she tempors. He backs down and lets the Murcian do it, who is off-kilter and off-center and throws right and left shots and looks towards his box again and again and touches his thigh while watching the second sleeve slip away.
Under those circumstances, the last set is a tongue twister. Alcaraz accepts the bandage on his thigh and then removes that same bandage. He insists on the serve-volley and even serves in a spoon, like Chang or Kyrgios, but he is lame and can’t run and Norrie doesn’t give him anything and stretches the points like they were chewing gum.
Alcaraz takes a risk, he has Djokovic within a stone’s throw! And he doesn’t retire but keeps playing until the end. He is already an extravagant player: he looks like the chess master who has lost the queen, the two rooks and the two knights, and still refuses to give up the king.
In the end, he is a young man overcome by circumstances. He is weighed down by the muscle injury, we are going to see what weight it will have in his sports career.