Carlos Alcaraz’s tears moved the crowd in the stands in Cincinnati, who watched the final of the Western & Southern Open.
The wasted match point in the second set tie-break could have knocked any player down; not Alcaraz. The Spaniard continued to fight and lengthened a match that seemed to be over by canceling four match points, two with out of the ordinary shots.
The tears of the young Spaniard at the end of the longest final ever seen in an ATP Masters 1000 tournament represent better than any other image the passion of a boy willing to always throw his heart beyond the obstacle to write the history of tennis.
Carlos Alcaraz in tears moves Cincinnati crowd
In the on court interview, Carlitos explained: “I’m exhausted but proud of myself.
I fought to the last point: I don’t know why I was crying at the end. I nearly beat one of the greatest tennis players of all time. It’s crazy to talk about this final now, but I left the pitch feeling genuine happiness for what I did.
My team and I are proud of ourselves. It was really difficult to play against Novak today.
He forced me to run from one side of the field to the other for most of the game. I tried to stay there, physically hold on, but it was really hard. I left everything out there. It’s great to know that the matches against me remind him of the matches against Rafael Nadal.
It means I’m on the right track. I’m working hard, but today it was really difficult to face everything Novak offered on the pitch. Match points saved with serve & volley? I feel comfortable when I play it.
At that moment I thought it was impossible to win a point from the baseline and I decided to use the serve & volley. My coach suggested the same thing to me from the stands. I decided to do it more often in the third set because I was physically at my limit.”
Here is the on court interview, in a video shared by Tennis TV, in which you can see the emotion shown by Calitos Alcaraz, culminating in tears of emotion: