“I always thought I was going to come back”: Carlos Alcaraz on belief, pain and surviving a five-hour battle

Carlos Alcaraz rescued an epic semifinal victory over Alexander Zverev after 5 hours and 26 minutes of battle. The Spaniard had taken the first two sets, but the German responded with two outstanding tie-breaks to send the match to a fifth set after more than four hours.

The six-time major champion overcame physical problems in the third set — in which he even vomited — and in the deciding set, Alcaraz kept his composure to close out the win 6-4, 7-6(5), 6-7(3), 6-7(4), 7-5, coming back from a break down — when he found himself trailing 3-5 in the final set. Alcaraz won the last four games in a row and secured his place in the final.

“Honestly, it’s been an incredible match,” an excited Alcaraz commented in his press conference for Spanish-language media. “In that fifth set, physically I was already feeling a little bit better, and then the first game comes and I think Sascha plays an unbelievable game. I think that level lasts for three or four games, playing at an extremely high level.”

“But the truth is that, sincerely, I never saw myself as dead at any moment. I always thought I was going to come back. Worse things have been seen, worse things I’ve done, I’ve come back before, which has always made me trust that I was going to return.”

The Spaniard recalled a legend: the 22-time Grand Slam champion and his semifinal against Fernando Verdasco back in 2009 — when he claimed victory after 5 hours and 14 minutes, on his way to his first Australian Open title.

“It reminds me a little bit of when Rafa had that great semifinal in Australia and then thought he wouldn’t be able to, and then he collapses in the fifth set,” Alcaraz commented. “I think that in a Grand Slam final we can never say that we are tired, but that we have to give everything that is in our hands. The match itself will carry us along to produce a good final.”

“I’m not saying to do what Rafa did, but it’s a very clear way of saying that the body can endure, as long as your mind has things clear.”

The Spaniard showed gestures of physical problems towards the third set, and it was even heard on the television broadcast when he told his team that he had vomited, asking them to give him something to feel better.

“I think I’ve been talking about it with my team, and after that changeover they saw that my face had changed a little,” explained the world No. 1. “I warned them in case I had to eat, if I had to take something to recover what I had thrown up, and I think from that moment on is when I start to have a little bit more physical problems.”

“In the end, there comes a moment when it’s late, when you start to feel the adductor on that run to the right, when with all the stress it has been heating up, and the fact of not seeing myself completely well physically, thinking whether the problems were going to get worse, everything else came after. But we have to study what happened so that it doesn’t happen again and try to take care of ourselves for the next time this happens.”

“After that, with all the stress and not knowing what was going on or if it was going to get worse, everything came after. In that moment, I talked to the physio and told him that when I ran to the forehand side, I started to feel the right adductor.

He decided to take the medical timeout. I just took the treatment during the changeover and that was it. Once again, I explained what was happening to the physio and he decided to take the medical.”

At one moment in the match, when Alcaraz was showing physical problems at the beginning of the fourth set, there was a moment in which Alcaraz made a movement towards the net during the change of ends, in which it appeared for a moment that he was about to retire. “No, no. I saw the video and I saw people talking about it, but there wasn’t a single second when I thought about retiring.”

“It was about who was going to go through first. Sometimes I let him go first, sometimes he let me go first. That video was just about who was going to walk through first. That was all.”

The 22-year-old delivered another victory in which he appeared defeated — recalling the Roland Garros final, where he came back from two breaks down and saved three match points. This time it was Alcaraz who was surprised by his rival’s comeback, but who ultimately ended up frustrating him in one of the best matches of his career.

“There are some moments when it looks like I’m giving up or not fighting at all. When I was younger, there were a lot of matches where I didn’t want to fight anymore or I just gave up,” Alcaraz added. “Then I matured, and I just hate that feeling afterward, thinking, ‘I could have done it,’ or ‘I could have done a little bit more,’ or ‘I could have suffered a little bit more.’ That thought just kills me.”

“So every extra step, every extra second of suffering, every second more of fighting is always worth it. That’s why I fight until the last ball and always believe that I can come back in every situation.”

This Sunday he will contest his first final in Melbourne against the 10-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic. While Djokovic boasts an incredible 104–10 record in Melbourne (91.2%), Alcaraz reaches 17 victories (81%). For now, the head-to-head favours the Serb 5–4 (3–2 in Grand Slams, 2–2 in finals).

Their last meeting was in the US Open semifinals, where Alcaraz won in straight sets on his way to the title, while Djokovic’s most recent victory came a year earlier, in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.