Alcaraz took a very tight first set. Then the unforced errors piled up, he went two sets to one down, and clawed his way to a fifth. Shelton finished it with an ace, at 3.30 in the morning.
Jean-Pol Vandenbroeck watched the match. Part of it, anyway. He says he saw enough.
Right, it’s very simple. That 13-0 of Alcaraz against the Americans, I had it down as fragile back in January. A run like that, in 80% of cases, and I’m being kind, goes down at night. Careful, I’m not saying the opposite of what I announced this summer. I’m clarifying.
Alcaraz, seven Grand Slam titles at 23, was playing his first tournament in several months in New York after a wrist injury. Afterwards he said: “Losing a match this close after four and a half hours is never nice. But you have to step back. We played exceptional tennis.”
Our pundit approves of the substance, not the form.
Stepping back, fine. Me, in Kitzbühel, in ’92, I lost a fifth set to a future top 10 and I didn’t step back, I took a shower. That’s exactly what I’ve been repeating for years, nobody listens.
Shelton, also 23, reaches the US Open last four for the second time. He meets Frances Tiafoe in the semi-final, which guarantees an American in the final. The last American men’s singles Grand Slam title goes back to Andy Roddick, here, in 2003.
In the other half of the draw, Alexander Zverev, world number two and this year’s Roland-Garros winner, plays the Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp, ranked 70th, and Karen Khachanov faces the Belgian Alexander Blockx.
It’s true, we checked: RTBF Sport.
