One day after saying goodbye to Rafael Nadal, knocked down by Jiri Lehecka, the Caja Mágica tastes two approaches to tennis.
The cameras show us: in the run-up, under the supervision of his team, Alcaraz speeds up the warm-up, activates the forearm that has weighed him down in recent weeks, activates his reflexes, and works with elastic bands.
And Rublev?
Rublev relaxes in the runway exit tunnel. He looks at the screens that write his name, listens to the public address announcement, he is a man alone in the world of Alcaraz.
And then, once on the track, everyone handles it in their own way.
Andrey Rublev (26) has the hurry and Carlos Alcaraz (20) has the break. It seems unbelievable, because in other times not so distant, the adolescent Alcaraz was fire and vertigo, it was the desire to overwhelm the rival with every point, the search for a Pulitzer with every hit.
It is no longer like that now, it is not like that at least in the first set, and getting on his float, the Murcian accelerates towards the first set and all the VIPs in the stands insist that this quarter-final matchup is already very decided, he leans on the Alcaraz side.
The perception is erroneous, or at least hasty, and Rublev is in charge of messing everything up: he does it at the opening of the second set, when he settles the rest (he breaks Alcaraz’s service in the second game) and solidifies himself in the service .
Rublev throws serves at more than 200 km/h, he sends them heeled and the ball angles even more, and Alcaraz throws himself very far back, so much so that he can feel the breath of the spectators who watch him from the pits, Ana Peleteiro, Modric, Raúl and David Villa, and suffers a lot when the Russian (without a flag) accelerates.
Rublev looks like a character from Full Monty, but it’s not him who dances on the floor, it’s Alcaraz who does it.
Suddenly, the Murcian is a lost soul at the back of the track, a fan who comes and goes and doesn’t know how to repair this break that the Russian is making, a steamroller in his inspired days, for example this one.
Rublev scores the second set and his tennis goes even further in the third, and thus surpasses the Murcian, who remained undefeated in the tournament since 2021 (2022 champion, 2023 champion), and who now shows some weaknesses: 4- 6, 6-3 and 6-2.
Like Nadal, he has some things to resolve before heading to Roland Garros.
