Alexander Zverev and Jannik Sinner might as well have gone 12 rounds in their U.S. Open battle on Monday night. Zverev survived a physically grueling fight 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 after four hours and 41 minutes, but both he and Sinner were on the ropes for basically the entire second half of the match.
Two days later, Carlos Alcaraz delivered the knockout punch.
Alcaraz took advantage of a fatigued and somewhat injured Zverev to dominate their Wednesday night quarterfinal contest 6-3, 6-2, 6-4. The top-ranked Spaniard needed two hours and 30 minutes to set up a semifinal showdown against Daniil Medvedev.
“I was in the match the first set,” Zverev said afterward. “I could have broken; it could have gone my way. It didn’t. Then (in) the second set I felt something in my hamstring glute–left side. I couldn’t push off on my serve anymore. My serve speed was down quite a lot compared to the other days.
“Against him especially I needed a good serving day, otherwise it would have been difficult. I think my biggest weapon was kind of taken away after the first set, and yeah, it’s difficult to even compete if you don’t have that.”
Of course, there is no guarantee that the German would have been competitive even at 100 percent. Alcaraz turned in a stellar performance that propelled him into his third matchup of the year with Medvedev. The 20-year-old crushed Medvedev at both the Indian Wells Masters and Wimbledon without losing more than three games in any set.
“(The) last matches that I played against Daniil I played a tactical game–played perfectly,” Alcaraz assessed. “I did pretty well all the things that I had to do against him, so I think my game suits pretty well against that type of opponent like Daniil.
“So I’m gonna try to do the same things that I did, for example, in Indian Wells and in Wimbledon. Hopefully (I) get the win and play the same level that I played in [those] matches.”
nice one, Alcaraz