Carlos Alcaraz leaves former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini looking a pale imitation

It wasn’t that Berrettini was kidding the public here. It wasn’t that he had flattered to deceive, or that his run to the fourth round was a mirage. He hadn’t actually dropped a single service game before he came up against Carlos Alcaraz. It certainly wasn’t as if Zverev was alone in hailing the quality of the Italian comeback king. A beaten finalist in 2021? Why not a repeat showing two years later.

Alcaraz is your answer. Alcaraz calmed the storm. It was the young Spaniard’s job to plant doubt in the Italian’s mind and, in so doing, in the course of four sets he transformed him.

The Berrettini that finished this match was unrecognisable from the man who started it. When he set out on the journey, it was as if he had committed Zverev’s words to heart. By the time he had finished, though, he was not even a pale imitation.

Certainty and resolve had gone and taken the judgment, power and astonishing groundstrokes of the first two sets with them. It was as if Alcaraz had forced him to recognise the truth: you look nothing like the guy of the Zverev hyperbole. If anyone, that man is me.

And with every match that Alcaraz completes, that increasingly becomes the debate. Can anyone beat Novak Djokovic here? Alcaraz has been asked that question repeatedly. He can hardly summon up a more convincing answer than by nullifying the spectacular Berrettini in this way.

For though the 3-6 6-3 6-3 6-3 scoreline suggests that Alcaraz had a minor stumble en route to his first Wimbledon quarter-final, the truth of this match was steeped in the first two glorious sets that were glittering with gems from both ends of the court.

There is a speedgun here to judge the velocity of the service. Another to assess the pace of the two forehands would have been nice, for these were two magnificent weapons – Alcaraz’s the big-swinging hammer, Berrettini’s very different, whipped and low, and, for the first set at least, deadly accurate.

Somehow Alcaraz lost that first set, but you wouldn’t have said that Berrettini had earned it. Then Berrettini lost the second; his form dipped for two games and suddenly he found that his lead had been eradicated.

Yet you would have struggled to pick a winner at this stage. The standard was exceptionally high, the quality required to land a winner was mesmerising.

There was even a “shot of the tournament” to rival Andrey Rublev’s – at the start of the second set when both players exchanged drop shots, Berrettini flicked the second drop across court so wide that it was almost behind the umpire’s chair, yet Alcaraz somehow chased it down and responded with a winner. He was so surprised that he raised his arms aloft as if to say: “I’m not really sure how that happened”.

When you carry on landing punches like that, they slowly begin to tell. This match was an essay on the persistence of Alcaraz, his continued application, his relentless power and accuracy. Berrettini could just about equal it for two sets, but the accuracy of his game lacked the stamina to match.

To stand a chance against Djokovic, a player here requires all that – all these qualities that Alcaraz demonstrated here. The relentlessness of it. Not just the occasional heart-stopping beauty of it, or the pinch-yourself reality that he has chased down another lost cause.

It was his relentless application here, never letting up, that finally exposed the Italian’s fallibility and it is something that any player who fancies themselves the match of Djokovic will need to bring to the contest.

For Alcaraz, that conversation still seems far away. On the one hand, we are talking about him as Djokovic’s most likely challenger. Simultaneously, we are looking at a young player who has just broken new ground.

He was knocked out in the fourth round last year. In his on-court interview after this match, he said that his ambition for Wimbledon 2023 was to reach the quarter-finals.

Well, he has achieved that and the demand is now for more.

Yet he is so modest, he only sees that as a far-off ambition. “My dream is to play a final here,” he said. “To win a title here one day.” One day, indeed.

The fact is that he remains something of a fresher. His quarter-final will be against Holger Rune, the Dane. It will be the first Wimbledon men’s quarter-final in the open era between two players who are under 21.

Alcaraz started playing tennis against Rune when they were both 12. “We grew up together,” he said. “Playing a grand-slam quarter-final against him is a great thing.”

Indeed, it is. Yet it is a reminder of the reality, that the new generation are so new and the challenge facing them further in the tournament is so daunting.

Yet it will be brilliant to watch. Alcaraz dealt with Berrettini in the most sporting manner. In the first point of the second set here, Berrettini slipped in trying to change direction, hit the ground and looked injured.

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When he didn’t then get up, Alcaraz was quickly around to his side of the court to check that he was OK.

Cue glances of respect shared between the two of them before Alcaraz went back to the job in hand. He checked that he was all right and then pulled his game apart.

– The Times

Originally published as Carlos Alcaraz leaves former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini looking a pale imitation