Young men have matured – Newspaper Kommersant No. 166 (7367) of 09/09/2022

On Friday, following the results of the semi-finals of the US Open, which entered its final phase, a completely new first racket of the world may be born. The 19-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaras is close to this title, after more than five hours of struggle, he broke the resistance of the Italian Yannick Sinner, who had match points, in the quarterfinals and will now play with the offender of Andrei Rublev, the American Francis Tiafoe. But perhaps even closer to him is the 23-year-old Norwegian Kasper Ruud, another opponent of Karen Khachanov.

The composition of the semi-finalists of the current US Open can be considered perhaps the most sensational in the history of the autumn major. In this list, two tennis players who are ranked outside the top 25 list are Francis Tiafoe and Karen Khachanov, world number seven Norwegian Kasper Ruud, who previously won only three matches on the courts of the American National Tennis Center, and yesterday’s junior – 19-year-old Spaniard Carlos Alcaras, who recently broke into the top five at a hurricane pace. Two weeks ago, a list of truly significant achievements of the four in the Grand Slam tournaments was limited June final of Kasper Ruud at Roland Garros. And by the way, there is no guarantee that the presence of Novak Djokovic, whom they didn’t let me in to America due to the lack of vaccination against coronavirus, would change the balance of power in New York dramatically.

Tennis’s greatest old men Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are still balking, of course, but a generational change in the elite men’s tennis is gaining momentum.

It got to the point that almost the main contender for the title of the first racket of the world was the same Ruud. Back in early August, this option looked fantastic, but now, fully realizing the degree of its reality, we can only shrug our shoulders. Moreover, in order to lead the ranking, the 23-year-old Norwegian may not even need the US Open title. It is enough for him to pass in the semi-finals of Khachanov, provided that Alcaras is defeated by Tiafoe. And such a development of events is quite possible, if only because the American in the quarterfinals figured out with Andrei Rublev on Wednesday afternoon, while the Spaniard ended his battle with the Italian Yannick Sinner on Thursday, when some New York workers were already gathering for the morning shift. Moreover, over the past four days, this was already the second five-set with the participation of Alcaras, who was fiercely resisted by Croatian Marin Cilic in the 1/8 finals.

The young Spaniard, who seems to soon surpass Rafael Nadal, the most famous jock in world tennis, in terms of quadriceps femoris, certainly represents the most phenomenal thing that has appeared in this sport in recent times.

Another confirmation of this was the meeting with Sinner, who is actually an extremely uncomfortable opponent for Alcaraz and beat him last summer at Wimbledon, as well as in the final of a small tournament in Croatian Umag. At the same time, she demonstrated that Sinner, another young and in his own way talented master, does not yet have a championship character and that Australian coach Darren Cahill, who joined his team, led to the leadership in the world rankings of such mentally different players as Lleyton Hewitt, Andre Agassi and Simona Halep, there is a lot of work to be done in this regard.

The fact is that the victory over Alcaraz was practically in Sinner’s hands. In the fourth set, he served for the match, leading 5:4, and even had a match point, but made a not-so-obvious mistake. And in the fifth installment, again leading with a break, Sinner simply crumbled before our eyes, giving four games in a row. As a result of this desperate tennis fight, which lasted 5 hours and 15 minutes, only 12 minutes were not enough to rewrite the record for the duration of matches at the US Open, set in the 1992 semi-final between Stefan Edberg and Michael Chang. But she finished at 2 hours 50 minutes at night. The tournament has never known such late clashes.

It is difficult to say whether Alcaraz will now have the strength to cope with Tiafoe, who demonstrates modern, aggressive and at the same time aesthetic tennis. But the situation in the dispute for leadership in the world classification is now as follows. Rafael Nadal has 5810 points in the so-called live ATP ranking, which already takes into account the results of the US Open, Alcaraz has 5460, Ruud has 5370, and Daniil Medvedev, who will now inevitably fall from first place to fourth, has 5065. In the event of an exit in the final, the Spaniard and the Norwegian will add 480 points to themselves, that is, they will bypass Nadal, and the winner of the final relies on 800 points more than the loser. Wait for the resolution of this intrigue is not long, a maximum of until Sunday. And it will be very interesting to what extent Karen Khachanov will be able to influence her, who previously met Ruud once, two years ago at a major clay tournament in Rome, then losing in three games.

Evgeny Fedyakov