Given the nature of events, the way in which the boy tends to get rid of the opponents, the rhythm that prints each and every one of the parties, the presences of Carlos Alcaraz could be narrated from the amount of damage caused to those who dared to get in front of him. If in the first match, the young Italian Flavio Cobolli, coming from the previous one, managed to adjust a result that was looking catastrophic for him, this Monday Taro Daniel, a thirty-year-old without much to tell in his already long career in the circuit, seemed to follow a similar fate against the number 1 in the world and great favorite to lift the title.

The Japanese, 112th in the world, however launched a warning to the great protagonist of the season, who left his first set in the second round of the tournament, before prevailing 6-1, 3-6, 6-1 and 6-2, in two hours and 25 minutes to face Denis Shapovalov on Friday. It is not so much that the victims left the gallows resigned to the gallows as the superiority that marked very soon the champion this year in Indian Wells, Madrid, Barcelona and Buenos Aires.

Perhaps Daniel, before entering the Philippe Chatrier, on a windy afternoon and without all the paper sold, wanted to bring to his memory the match that both played two years ago in the challenger of Oeiras, in which he put a reasonable price to his head, falling by 6-2, 5-7 and 6-2, although it is already known how Alcaraz has run since then, the dizzying pace of its growth beyond measure.

The script was disrupted

In 31 minutes, the Japanese was already 6-1 down, subjected to the homicidal timing of the reigning US Open champion. He couldn't stand his ball speed or find any way to close the gap on Alcaraz's debut this year at centre. Everything went under the planned script until the Spaniard, perhaps accommodated by the slack with which he handled the game, left a door locked through which the good Daniel sneaked with stealth.

Whether it was the wind, harmful to both, the overconfidence or imprecision in his strokes, or it was a conglomeration of all this, the truth is that the Japanese regained self-esteem and began to play longer, hurting Alcaraz in particular with his finely tuned backhand. Obtained his fair prize, he saw how the Murcian recovered order and success. Spectacular the point of the sixth game of the third partial, with 5-0 for Alcaraz, whose narration will not do justice: left, counterleft, willy (ball returned between the legs) and counterwilly, until the 30-15 for the Spaniard.

Daniel's trajectory in the clay season was not a factor of concern: he stayed in the previous of Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome, in the first round of the ATP 250 of Banja Luka, in the quarters of the challenger of Cagliari and in the eighth ofthe challenger of Rome. Winner five years ago, on the clay of Istanbul, of the only title of his career, the tennis player born in New York fought to take Alcaraz to four sets, which is no small thing in these times.

  • tennis
  • Carlos Alcaraz
  • Articles Javier Martínez

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