Video tennis Nadal – Alcaraz: Injury turning point, unexpected set 3 (Madrid Open)

(Tennis video – Tennis results, Rafael Nadal – Carlos Alcaraz, quarterfinals of the Madrid Open) An injury occurred in the second set that made the third set very unexpected.

This is the 3rd meeting between the two most notable players in Spain at the moment, and the winner of the match will win tickets to play the semi-finals against Novak Djokovic. The match took place exactly a year and a day since they first met in the second round of the Madrid Open 2021, and Alcaraz had the opportunity to become the first teen player to knock Nadal down on clay when he was just 19 years old. .

Alcaraz thought he was going to lose due to injury but got up excellently to defeat Nadal

The match from the beginning was exciting when Alcaraz won the first break, Nadal demanded the break in the next game, but once again the juniors jumped up. Nadal, even when he is prepared for Alcaraz’s drop shots, often loses to younger opponents, not only that, but Alcaraz also has very difficult forehands. Such a cross-court hit in game 7 plus two more errors from Nadal helped Alcaraz win the third break and win the first set with a score of 6-2.

The incident happened in the second set when Alcaraz got hurt while saving the ball in game 3 and then had to stop playing to cover his right ankle. He was limited in movement and quickly lost the second set 1-6, making a lot of mistakes as Nadal kept aiming towards the bottom of the court to make forehands.

However, set 3 saw a strong response from Alcaraz, who changed tactics very flexibly to cope with the new situation. He unexpectedly won a white game in game 4 and then maintained this advantage until the end to win 6-3, beating Nadal in the final ball of the set with a beautiful long line.

Winning after 3 sets with a time of 2 hours 17 minutes, Alcaraz has fulfilled his dream when he will meet Novak Djokovic for the first time in the semi-finals.