Some slip and slide as grass gets greener for Carlos Alcaraz

It’s not often that Carlos Alcaraz has appeared flustered on court this season. Visibly unhappy about a line call and the subsequent decision to replay the point on a break opportunity in the fifth game of his second set against Nicolas Jarry, the Spaniard lost the next point. His body language revealed a mind still stuck on the previous episode.

Adding to the unusualness, that little passage of play came after Alcaraz had averted the risk of going a double break down — how often has that too happened this year? — in the set.

However, staying true to his champion-like mentality and world No.1 tag, the 20-year-old waded through the testing phase to come out a 6-3, 6-7(6), 6-3, 7-5 winner against the world No.28 Chilean in the Wimbledon third round on Saturday.

From a man who has lost all of four matches in the first six months this year, it was a scratchy show on centre court. One that showed why he hasn’t gone beyond the fourth round on the lawns of the All England Club and why his top billing this edition doesn’t quite accurately reflect going into the second week with a certain Novak Djokovic looming.

To be fair, Jarry was no routine test, especially with the kind of season he’s had. Only seven players have taken Alcaraz the distance in a match this season. Jarry is one of them, in February’s ATP 500 Rio de Janeiro semi-final in a 7-6(2), 5-7, 0-6 defeat.

The 27-year-old began the year ranked 152 in the world and having to go through the qualifying rounds at the Australian Open. His first big tournament run came in Rio where he beat two top-50 players. That was only the start of his brilliant clay swing in which he won two ATP titles (in Santiago and Geneva) and stunned opponents, including Diego Schwartzman, Borna Coric, Casper Ruud, Alexander Zverev and Grigor Dimitrov. At the French Open, he was stopped by eventual finalist Ruud in the Round of 16 and in his next event on the grass courts of Halle, beat Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets in the second round.

Zooming up the ranking charts and in his form and belief, the world No.28, therefore, wasn’t going to be blown away. The first set did go as per script and the Spaniard’s way before the Chilean added some spice to the contest.

The solid-serving Jarry’s returns now generating pace and precision alike, he broke Alcaraz in the second game of the second set off a splendid return and then held to love for a 3-0 lead. His forehand began to outmuscle Alcaraz’s — Jarry struck 15 winners in the set to the 10 from the other side — and the Spaniard, like his reaction to the line call reflected, was feeling the heat.

He did eventually get the break back in the seventh game venting out a big ‘Vamos!’. Both flaunted their solid serves in the tiebreak until 7-6, when Alcaraz netted a backhand facing set point.

Jarry, though, couldn’t sustain the high quality in the third set, in which his serving efficiency also dropped. Maintaining his level, Alcaraz got the break in the fourth game where he executed an amazing forehand passing winner on the move.

Against the run of play and down 1-2, Jarry broke early in the fourth set after a dip from Alcaraz. But like in the second set, Alcaraz thwarted more break points only to level things up in the seventh game as Jarry missed a simple forehand putaway. Unlike the second set, however, Alcaraz did not leave it to a tiebreak shoot-off this time.

“He has been playing really well. We’ve played in Rio. It was a really tough match. Here as well,” Alcaraz said on court. “I’m really happy with the level I played to get through this tough round.”

Medvedev, Tsitsipas move into fourth round

Also moving to the fourth round after a bit of a wobble was Daniil Medvedev. The third-seeded Russian lost the first set to Hungary’s Marton Fucsovics but quickly regrouped to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Stefanos Tsitsipas, a day after beating Andy Murray in a five-setter that stretched two days, made short work of Serbian Laslo Djere in a 6-4, 7-6(5), 6-4 victory.

Bopanna-Ebden advance, Jeevan-Balaji out

In the doubles draw, Rohan Bopanna and partner Matthew Ebden, seeded sixth, held off a spirited challenge by unseeded Argentina combo of Guillermo Duran and Tomas Martin Etcheverry in a 6-2, 6-7(5), 7-6(10-8) first round victory.

The India-Australian pair, who have won two titles on the ATP Tour since pairing up at the start of the season, crashed out in the first rounds of both Australian and French Open. They will take on Britishmen Jacob Fearnley and Johannus Monday next.

Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and N Sriram Balaji, late entrants in the draw as an alternate pair, were defeated 6-7(5), 4-6 by second seeds Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek in the first round.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.