US OPEN – Semi-finals – Carlos Alcaraz defeats Frances Tiafoe after a new thriller and joins Ruud in the final

To believe that Carlos Alcaraz likes it. Anyway, we love it. Three consecutive marathons. Three epic fights. And three wins in five sets. Because in the end, he wins. After Marin Cilic in the round of 16 and Jannik Sinner in the quarters, he resisted the ardor, panache and courage of a formidable Frances Tiafoe on Friday evening, worthy of what he had shown since the start of the fortnight.

But that wasn’t enough. In 4:19, Alcaraz still had the last word (6-7, 6-3, 6-1, 6-7, 6-3) to reach the final, where he will find Casper Ruud. The two men will aim for both a first major title and the world number one spot. Suffice to say that there will be on the table the stakes of not knowing what to do with it. Will Juan Carlos Ferrero’s protege still have enough fuel for this last trip? Despite its delirious second week, we almost want to answer yes. Because he is Carlos Alcaraz.

Admirable Tiafoe

He was again masterful on an Arthur-Ashe court obviously won over to the cause of Frances Tiafoe, but never hostile towards this sacred piece of champion from Spain. As if they had already adopted it. For Carlos Alcaraz, this semi-final was for a long time the counterpoint to his match against Sinner. Against the Italian, he pocketed the first set, lost the next two and then saved a match point in the fourth. This time, he gave up the first act, in the decisive game, before clearly gaining the upper hand over the American to lead two sets to one and break at the start of the fourth. In reality, from 7-6 2-2 to 7-6, 3-6, 1-6, 0-2, the local hero even frankly drank the cup.

Logic suggested that the case was over. As it was, the match had been very nice, but without the epic breath that characterizes battles over time. Tiafoe had given in too soon and too abruptly for that. Then, suddenly, Rafael Nadal’s heartthrob looked magnificent again, perhaps even more so than he had against the man with 22 Grand Slam titles.

With mad will and audacity, he refused to die. He erased a first break in the fourth set to come back to 2-2, then a second to pick up at 3-3. But the best was yet to come. At 5-4 in his favor, Carlos Alcaraz obtained a final point. He did not play it badly, but Tiafoe saved it in an extraordinary way before, in stride, to snatch the tie-break. His eighth decisive game won in this tournament. Eight out of eight. Unheard of at the US Open in the same fortnight.

Do like Nadal…

For Alcaraz, all this therefore had a feeling of deja vu with reversed fronts. But the comparison with his duel against Jannik Sinner was going to stop there. In the end, he wins. What strength of character in this kid, who went back to fighting as if nothing had happened. As in the fourth set, he broke from the start. Frances Tiafoe came back again to better lose her face-off at 2-2. The break too many. Totally dropped by his first ball (only 31% in this last act), the American could not produce a last miracle.

Midnight was about to strike when a last aggression in return pushed Tiafoe to the fault. Carlos Alcaraz could collapse on the ground. Where is he going to find all this? Nowhere, it is already in him. On Sunday, he will therefore play his first capital final and it is quite reasonable to think that it will not be the last.

But it is no longer a question of talking about promises and a bright future for the precocious Murcian. It is the present that can already belong to him. He is one victory away from becoming the second man in more than three decades to win a Grand Slam under the age of twenty. It would be a masterful way to become part of the legend near Rafael Nadal, also crowned at 19 in 2005 at Roland-Garros. History is on. She gallops, even.