Carlos Alcaraz made history by defeating Noak Djokovic in a dramatic match at the 2022 Madrid Open that lasted well over three hours.
After both players dispatched all of the competition en route to the semi-final, it was time for a big showdown at the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in the Spanish capital.
In the quarter-finals, the Spanish teenager defeated fellow compatriot Rafael Nadal in three sets, and after beating the best clay-court player in the history of the sport, he had to take on arguably the second-best player on the surface.
It was the first-ever meeting on the ATP Tour between the two, and it was highly anticipated, with the crowd in Madrid expectedly getting behind their player, who always celebrates his birthday at the Madrid Open.
It was a real three-set drama and despite the Serbian's experience, it was the younger player who proved to be better. The seventh seed was able to overcome a first-set loss after Djokovic won it in the tie-break 7-5.
The Spaniard then won the second set 7-5 before the match was decided in the third-set tie-break. It took three hours and 38 minutes before Alcaraz won 6-7(5), 7-5, 7-6(5), securing back-to-back wins over Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
It was a superb moment and a passing-the-torch moment, which indicates that Alcaraz has arrived at the big gates of tennis. The match was filled with superb rallies, lucky points, shots that defy any laws of physics, and a lot of drama.
At the end of the day, it was a best-of-three sets match that lasted almost four hours, which highlights that it was a proper spectacle contested between the legend of the sport and a player who might become a legend if he continues on the trajectory that he started his tennis career on.
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