Scrapping for his life against Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz opened his racket face with lightning-quick suddenness to deliver one of the immaculately executed drop shots with which, at the absurdly precocious age of 19, he has already become synonymous.
Sinner, as swift and supple as they come, raced forward, narrowly failing to pick up the ball and then tumbling to the Centre Court turf, just about avoiding the net post as he went. Alcaraz, who was down two sets to love at the time, immediately went to check his opponent was OK. After an amiable fist bump, the pair returned to the more pressing business of trying to bludgeon the life out of each other.
In that instant, the mind wandered back to the appalling antics of the previous evening on the same stage. To the look of impish glee on Nick Kyrgios’s face as Stefanos Tsitsipas thumped a service return wildly out of court, and Kyrgios realised just how deeply he had riled the Greek. To Tsitsipas’s unbridled rage as he drilled bodyline shots at his rival. Same stage, very different cast. What a difference a day makes.
On an afternoon when the centenary of Centre Court was celebrated with a parade of former champions, it took a pair of grass-court rookies with just 14 previous matches on the surface between them to restore a sense of order to the tournament. It may not have been quite the match Wimbledon expected – the 10th-seeded Sinner eliminated Alcaraz, the fifth seed, 6-1, 6-4, 6-7 (8-10), 6-3, in the process reaching his third grand slam quarter-final – but it was the match Wimbledon needed.
At 19 and 20 respectively, Alcaraz and Sinner are precisely the kind of ambassadors the men’s game needs as it contemplates a life beyond Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic: positive, dynamic and no less respectful of the sport than they are of their peers.
“I always try to be a good person first, and then a good athlete,” said Alcaraz. “We have a good relationship with Jannik off the court. Obviously if I see my opponent fall, or if he feels pain, I’m going to ask him if he’s OK, if everything [is] going well. I have much respect for him. We are friends and good people first of all.”
In the previous round, Alcaraz conceded a point to Oscar Otte after a mistake from a line judge threatened to deny his opponent an eye-catching winner. It is not the first time he has made such a gesture. Two months ago in Rome, meanwhile, Sinner moved swiftly to get water to a spectator who had been taken ill. If they have been portrayed as the future of the game, it is not only on account of their youth.
“I think what we showed today, it’s a great level of tennis, great attitude from both of us, so hopefully this is going to be the case,” said Sinner. “But you never know, there are still so many other players who are playing incredible tennis. For sure, we are the two youngest at the moment, so let’s see. I don’t know in the future what’s going to happen, but I think it’s great for tennis to have some new names and new players.”
For two sets, Alcaraz resembled a man who had brought a knife to a gunfight. The Spaniard’s impressive victory over Otte in the previous round had supported his view that, for all his inexperience on grass, he was making strides with each day he spent on the surface. Here, however, that progress stalled, Alcaraz’s policy of unalloyed aggression floundering before an opponent who overpowered him from the baseline and neutralised his thunderous serves with quick, sharp returns that were often snapping at his ankles before he had even completed his service motion.
Unable to dictate, Alcaraz needed a fallback strategy. Few players have more options at their disposal, but the pace and depth of Sinner’s ball, and the speed and litheness of his movement, made change difficult to implement.
When Alcaraz tried a signature drop shot, Sinner raced forward and feathered away a deft, angled backhand. When Alcaraz fashioned a first break point, the Italian found the line with a mighty forehand, forcing an error. Alcaraz followed a blocked backhand return into the net; Sinner nudged an imperious backhand pass for a winner. The Spaniard tried coming in behind his serve instead; the return was past him before he even reached the service line. Sinner was the man with all the answers.
Swept aside in the first set, Alcaraz opened the second with a double fault and quickly found himself trailing again as Sinner earned a break with a return that kissed the baseline. That Alcaraz belatedly made a match of it was down to the one factor his opponent could not influence: a primordial instinct to fight. He held from 0-40 down in the opening game of the third set, and gradually battled his way into contention, with his obduracy nowhere more evident than in the third-set tiebreak, where he saved two match points. He would save three more in the fourth set before Sinner crushed a final forehand to book a last-eight appointment with Djokovic, who dropped his second set of the Championships as he saw off Tim van Rijthoven of the Netherlands 6-2, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.
“It’s going to be a tough match, of course,” said Sinner, who lost his only previous meeting with Djokovic in straight sets. “He is playing very good. I will try my best, that’s the minimum I can do, and just enjoy every moment, which I’ve done today. It was a very special feeling to go on Centre Court.”