Alcaraz: "The match against Djokovic is the one we were all waiting for, I was the first"

Recently closed, with unexpected difficulties in the last set, his brilliant victory in the quarterfinals against Stefanos Tsitsipas, Carlos Alcaraz openly approached his match on Friday against Novak Djokovic. “Since the draw was drawn, this is the game we've all been waiting for, me the first,” he said with his everlasting smile on his lips.. A lover of competition, the world number 1 recalled his victory in three sets in the semifinals of the Madrid Masters, last year, in the only match that both have played, without hiding his desire to meet the Balkan again.

In fact, it is only the second time this season that they have met in a tournament draw, after doing so in Rome, where neither of them reached the final rounds.. Injured, the Spanish could not play the Australian Open. Djokovic was absent from the American tour due to his refusal to get vaccinated against Covid and later they did not coincide in any of the other land tournaments.

The experience

“For him it is the forty-fifth semifinal of a Grand Slam; for me it is only the second,” said the reigning champion of the United States Open, who did not want to assume the role of favorite. Curiously, both agreed on a statement: “If you want to be the best you have to beat the best”. Djokovic had said it after his four-set victory against KarenKhachanov when he was asked before a then eventual crossover with Alcaraz and the Spaniard returned it to him with the confirmed confrontation.

“I have seen many of Djokovic's matches against Nadal and I always thought that one day I could be there,” said the world number 1, who repeatedly described his next rival as “one of the best in history”.. “He will be the favorite in all the tournaments he plays, because he is a legend,” he added.. Nole joked earlier about this “young man who plays with a lot of intensity and looks like another Spaniard who does it with his left hand”, considering him “the rival to beat”..

Alcaraz described the match against Tsitsipas as one of the best of his career and admitted that he lost concentration in the final stretch. “With players like these you get careless for a moment and you can lose,” he said, with the lesson learned ahead of the duel ahead.

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