Carlos Alcaraz nearly crashed out at Wimbledon on Friday at the hands of a familiar foe.
The defending champion came back from a two-sets-to-one deficit against Frances Tiafoe, who pushed him to the edge two years ago at the U.S. Open and nearly knocked him over on Centre Court.
Again, he didn’t quite pull it off. World No. 3 Alcaraz came alive, running away with the fourth-set tiebreak and the fifth set to prevail 5-7, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(2) 6-2.
“He’s so tough,” Alcaraz said of world No 29 Tiafoe.
He hasn’t been tough in a while, but he sure was Friday.
For the better part of three hours, Tiafoe took advantage of a familiar sort of off-day for Alcaraz, an afternoon scattered with off-the-mark forehands, questionable decisions and poor returns against a player who relishes the big stage like few others. Tiafoe played his best tennis of the year, or maybe even two.
But with his hopes for the tournament resting on the outcome of a fourth-set tiebreak, it was Alcaraz who came alive.
His strokes picked up velocity and shot for the lines as they rarely had all day. Suddenly, after pushing Alcaraz onto the ropes for nearly two sets, with an interval in which Alcaraz found his feet, Tiafoe was the one on the defensive — unable to match the kind of tennis that Alcaraz can play, but basically no one on the tour can handle. Alcaraz won seven of nine points in the tiebreak, and six of the next seven games.
The win keeps alive Alcaraz’s hopes of pulling off one of the toughest tasks in tennis or perhaps any sport. That’s winning the French Open on clay, the slowest surface in the sport, in June, and then capturing Wimbledon on grass, the fastest surface, in July. The win also keeps him on a collision course for a semifinal showdown against Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1 and his preeminent rival at the top of men’s tennis.
Novak Djokovic and his surgically repaired right knee are on the other side of the draw. Next, he faces either another American, Brandon Nakashima, or the French No. 16 seed, Ugo Humbert.
For Tiafoe, the match was nearly everything he has been striving for — and not getting anywhere near — since his quarterfinal loss to Ben Shelton at the U.S. Open last September. Since then he has struggled with his game and his motivation, especially when matches start to turn against him.
Coming into Wimbledon, he was 14-15 this season.
The tide started to change for Tiafoe this week, when he came back from two sets down for the first time in his career against Matteo Arnaldi. Tiafoe said that when he was a set away from getting on the plane, he wasn’t even thinking about coming back into the match.
He let go and tried to have fun from one point to the next. The next thing he knew, he was cruising through the fifth set and moving onto the next round.
From there he knew what his likely reward would be for beating Croatian Borna Coric in round two: a date with Alcaraz on Centre Court, the kind of “popcorn match”, as he put it, that so often brings out the best in him. It certainly did on Friday — until Alcaraz became too much, as he so often does at the most important moments.
Tiafoe played with the fearlessness and confidence that has been missing. Most importantly, he played with a renewed joy, even in those dying embers when Alcaraz pulled off the sort of magic that he has become known for. Big, unreturnable serves? Smile. Forehand missiles down the line? Shrug, move on.
Before the tiebreak, Alcaraz played his best tennis in the second half of the second set, raising his level and trying to find his form by embracing his power, like a fastball pitcher throwing heat into the middle of the strike zone and daring Tiafoe to get it back and out-slug him.
It worked for a bit, as Alcaraz knotted the match at a set apiece, but in the third set, Tiafoe started jumping on Alcaraz’s serve again, sending him backpedaling and chasing while holding his own serve with ease. That continued into the fourth-set tiebreak, and for 23 games, all Alcaraz could do was be behind, and then stay even.
And then the change came. So fast, but so clear. First he chased down a short volley from Tiafoe for a passing shot to go up 2-0 in the tiebreak. Then, with Tiafoe serving to try to keep it close, Alcaraz crushed an inside-out forehand across the court with a force that sent a message everyone in a packed Centre Court could hear.
“I was just thinking about the next ball and telling myself that I have to go for it. If I lose it I lose it,” he said.
He doesn’t lose it. Not here.