After Carlos Alcaraz fell just short of winning the Western & Southern Open final Sunday against Novak Djokovic, he gave an emotional speech to the Cincinnati crowd.
Later on when the Spaniard had a moment to reflect on his defeat, the 20-year-old realised that win or lose, he helped create a special moment in tennis history.
“I feel proud of myself, honestly. I [was] talking and I don’t know why I was crying because I fought until the last ball. I almost beat one of the greatest of all time from our sport,” Alcaraz said in his press conference. “It’s crazy to talk about it right now, but I left the court really, really happy [with] what I did.”
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The World No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings was in control for a good portion of the match. Leading by a set and 4-2, he was two service holds from lifting the trophy. Even after letting slip his service break, he earned a championship point in the second-set tie-break.
But instead of rueing the chances he missed, Alcaraz credited his opponent, who is now a 39-time ATP Masters 1000 champion.
“Today was really, really difficult playing against Novak. He always put almost five, six, seven balls in [the court] every point. So fighting and running from one corner to other one every point is really tough to deal with almost the whole match,” Alcaraz said. “I tried to stay there, to stay good physically, but it was tough.
“As I said, I left everything on court. For me, obviously it’s great that he knows that every time he’s going to play against me, reminds him playing against Rafa or against the best ones because that means we are in a good path.”
Even after Djokovic battled back to force a decider and then pulled ahead in the third set, Alcaraz did not give up. The Spaniard saved 12 of the 13 break points he faced in the final set to keep the match close and eventually force a tie-break.
On many of those pressure points, Alcaraz played without fear, throwing in gutsy serve-and-volley plays and generally taking risks.
“It’s something I feel comfortable playing, serve and volley, sometimes. Of course, in that moment I was seeing that from the baseline, for me it was even tougher to win a point. So I decided to do serve and volley. My coach told me the same from the stands. ‘Go to the net. Go to the net’,” Alcaraz recalled. “I was seeing that it was working, so I decided to do it more often in the third set because, as I said, physically I was on the limit.”
Immediately after the match, Djokovic raved about Alcaraz’s performance and declared the match “one of the toughest matches I’ve ever played in my life”. Alcaraz was happy to hear those kind words from the champion.
“For me it’s great to hear that things from Novak, [who] has played iconic matches, storied matches. He said some matches against me were [some] of the toughest that he has played, it’s great. That means that my team and myself, we are doing the great work, we are in a good path,” Alcaraz said. “[Because of] matches like this one, we know that we have to still work in the same way that we are doing.”