The storm could not be ignored, could not be overlooked.

For more than an hour he tugged and shook the masts above the large video wall while Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz played tennis.

The flags flapped and snapped in the wind, which further down the stadium blew hats from heads and blew paper napkins in front of it.

He didn't stop at Nadal's water bottles, which were meticulously aligned as always, and blew one over.

Playing tennis in such conditions is no small feat in itself, not to mention playing like the two Spaniards did in the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

At the highest level of difficulty, Nadal won 6: 4, 3: 6, 6: 4 in more than three hours, but in the end it was at least as much about the 17-year-old compatriot.

When the two met for the first time last year in Madrid on clay, Alcaraz only played three games in two sets;

this time he won more than one set.

"He destroyed me the first time," he said afterwards, "I was much closer this time, and that makes me happy."

Closer is a fairly harmless description of the way he challenged the great compatriot: an announcement in bold letters from the first to the last ball. Nadal, who surprisingly won the final against American Taylor Fritz 3: 6 on Sunday (local time). , who lost 6:7 (5:7) and thus conceded his first defeat of the year, had said a few days earlier that much of this story reminded him of his own teenage years on the world tennis stage.

When he first played in the final of a Masters 1000 tournament in Miami in 2005, he was the same age as Alcaraz is now, and on both occasions the augurs were unanimous.

He will win big titles, they prophesied 17 years ago in Miami, and the verdict on the young successor does not deviate from this by five centimetres.

Same passion, same work ethic, same down to earth.

Differences are primarily external;

Nadal's hair and pants were much longer at the time, one is left-handed, the other right-handed.

After the semifinals in Indian Wells, Alcaraz moves up to 16th in the world rankings and he is the only teenager in the top 80 in men's tennis.

When he won the title at the tournament in Rio de Janeiro a few weeks ago, he was the youngest winner of a 500 tournament, at the US Open last year he was the youngest quarterfinalist in the pro era in New York and so on and so on.

Of course, it is not a question of being successful earlier than others, but of continuing at the same pace after the first successes.

Nadal says: "It seems like he is humble enough to work hard and to understand that there is only one way to become a great champion - and that is to constantly work on improvements.

I have little doubt that he's going to be a big one - he already is, in fact."

The way Alcaraz maintained his position in the Indian Wells attack, how he kept forcing advantages, how he had the courage to sometimes even play serve-and-volley, that was highly impressive and seemed very mature.

The 18-year-old himself says he now knows what to do against players of Nadal's class.

"I've played against a lot of greats and I feel like I belong at this level."

Nadal sees it the same way.

He says the kid has everything it takes to be a champion and he's already looking forward to what his career will bring.

Carlos Alcaraz not only proved himself in attack, after the end of the game the sky was wrapped in so many colors at sunset that a good portion of pink remained as a promise for him.