LONDON (AP) — There Carlos Alcaraz was on his back on a baseline down there Royal BoxHe briefly sat down on the grass after doing the splits and slipping while running to hit a forehand during his fourth-round match on Sunday.
So now what? Give up the point and get ready for the next one? Ha. Not this kid. Alcaraz got to his feet, ran to his left to get a backhand away from the doubles alley, then moved forward to reach for a short shot and, finally, watched his opponent send a volley long.
That allowed Alcaraz to win the second set 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 against No. 16 seed Ugo Humbert at Centre Court. Defending champions at the All England Club He celebrated the moment by raising his right index finger in a “number 1” gesture and shouting “Vamos!” while thousands of spectators stood up to salute him.
The 21-year-old Spaniard is making a habit of making the impossible possible, finding ways to win points that many other players lose and, in the big picture, blazing a new trail again and again. He is the first teenager to reach No. 1 in the ATP rankings, and last month’s French Open championship made him the youngest man to win Grand Slam titles on three surfaces: hard, grass and clay courts.
When asked during an on-court interview how he would describe this spectacular sequence against Humbert, Alcaraz replied with a big smile: “Unbelievable, I think. I just try to fight for every point, every ball. It doesn’t matter what part of the court.”
Incredible, perhaps, but certainly not unprecedented. At least not for him. Later, in his news conference, he recalled that he had made a similar recovery from a fall during his thrill-every-minute marathon against opponent Jannik Sinner at the 2022 US Open, a tournament that Alcaraz won.
“I feel like I can get to every ball,” Alcaraz said.
There’s a potential rematch against No. 1-ranked Sinner in the semifinals. Everyone just needs to win one more time to get there. In Tuesday’s quarterfinals, Alcaraz will face No. 12 Tommy Paul, and Sinner will face 2021 US Open champion Daniil Medvedev.
Sinner was defeated in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals by Novak Djokovic, who later lost to Alcaraz in a five-set final.
Sinner earned his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January, and he advanced with a 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (9) victory against No. 14 Ben Shelton on Sunday, breaking the big-serving left-hander’s serve four times — the same number of times other players had broken serve against the 21-year-old American in 15 sets entering the day.
Like Alcaraz, a sinner He is capable of some improvised wizardry with the racket, as he demonstrated in the third set when he swung his racket around his back at the baseline and hit a shot between his legs, followed by a passing winner.
“I’m not a player who plays a lot of trick shots. But in this case, it was still the easiest shot. I didn’t have room to go left and right,” Sinner said, calling it a “lucky shot.”
Paul advanced to his first quarterfinal at Wimbledon by improving to 41-14 and extended his undefeated run to nine matches with a 6-2, 7-6 (3), 6-2 win over Roberto Bautista Agut on grass. Medvedev advanced when Grigor Dimitrov retired with a foot injury in the first set.
Another mid-match retirement occurred in a women’s fourth-round match: 2017 US Open runner-up Madison Keys suffered a foot injury, took a medical timeout and then briefly tried to continue playing. But as she was walking toward the net, she wiped away her tears and decided to retire at 5-5 in the third set against Jasmine Paolini, a finalist at this year’s French Open.
“I feel very sorry for him. It’s bad to have the match end like that. What can I say?” Paolini said. “I feel a bit happy, but also sad for him. It’s not easy to win like that.”
Paolini’s next fight No. 19 Emma Navarro, who beat defending US Open champion Coco Gauff 6-4, 6-3 In the last match of the day, second-seeded Gauff’s exit came a day after No. 1 Iga Swiatek lost and leaves only two of the top 10 seeded women in the bracket: No. 4 Elena Rybakina, the 2022 champion, and No. 7 Paolini.
Lulu Sun will face Donna Vekic in the other women’s quarterfinal on Sunday. Sun defeated 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 to become the first woman to reach the quarterfinals. Qualifying She has reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals since 2010 and is the first New Zealand woman to reach that far at the All England Club in the Open era, which began in 1968.
Vekic defeated Paula Badosa 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 on No. 2 Court in a match interrupted by rain three times to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in 10 grass court appearances.
“I feel like I’m living my dream,” said Vekic, 28, from Croatia.
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