In just two hours and twelve minutes, the 20-year-old Spanish phenomenon got off the finalist in 2021, completely out of place until he partially recovered his level in the third round.
Alcaraz had food for his rival’s moralewith victories in the four previous games between the two, but the massacre in the ‘Night Session’ of Philippe Chatrier threatens to leave a deeper scar on the Greek.
The previews of this Tuesday’s duel stated that the Greek’s weakness could be his one-handed backhand, but Alcaraz’s superiority was such that he did not even have to focus his offense there. Subsidence reached Tsitsipas from all sides of the runway.
Power and wrist at an enormous level, the catalog of the Spanish child prodigy is infinite, the endless palette: parallels that Rafa Nadal himself would sign, accurate volleys when the situation required it and the usual portion of drop shots, before which Tsitsipas did not even threaten to try to reach them.
The Greek was a flan. When Alcaraz limited himself to tensing up the rally a bit, he himself broke down multiplying the errors.
In a Roland Garros rich in epic five-set battles, the public couldn’t believe it. ‘Stefanos, Stefanos!’ he yelled in chorus trying to lift the Greek up, begging for a little show.
No sooner said than done, the Spaniard got tangled up at the end of the game, wasting three match points, and Tsitsipas finally had his first two breaking options. He took advantage of the second and stretched out the agony for a while.
In the ‘tie-break’ the sixth ‘match ball’ was the charm for the number 1, who will now collide with the legend Djokovic.
It will be on Friday, June 9, that an experienced Djokovic will face the new tennis star, Alcaraz, in the semifinals of Roland Garros.