Impressionnant en début de semaine, "Carlitos" Alcaraz a été chahuté et bousculé pour rejoindre les quarts de finale du Masters 1000 madrilène. Dans un "remake" de la finale 2023 à Madrid, le Murcien s'était employé en trois manches pour s'imposer contre Jan-Lennard Struff. La tension de l'Ibérique s'est confirmée ce mercredi devant Andrey Rublev. Le Russe a laché ses coups, et malgré quelques fautes directes dans la première manche perdue 6-4, s'est parfaitement repris ensuite. Plus fort, plus puissant et plus à l'aise, il n'a laissé que très peu de chance au numéro 3 mondial de s'en sortir. Rublev disputera sa toute première demi-finale sur la terre battue madrilène. De son côté, Carlos Alcaraz sort sans trop de regrets, lui qui disputait un tournoi de reprise, le premier pour lui depuis un mois, et sur terre battue en 2024. Même s'il semblait invincible chez lui, invaincu depuis un match contre Rafael Nadal en 2021, année de sa première participation.
00:30Andrey, congrats. I heard in your interview on Tennis TV you were saying that the key was that you kept your cool this match. Why do you think you were able to do that?
01:00Hi Andrey, congrats. Regarding your serve, it was quite incredible today in the second and third set. Can you talk a little bit about it? And also, since the beginning of the season, I think you have good stats.
01:18Yes, it's true. The last two matches, I'm serving really well and I'm winning a lot on my serve. And of course, it helps a lot when you win every game a couple of points free because of the serve.
01:34Today, I was serving also really well. In the beginning, I didn't start serving well, but then later on during the match, I was able to calm down myself and I started to play better. I started to hit better and with the shots, I started to serve better as well.
01:52And then, I finished the match, I think, at least with the serve, I was feeling that I can serve any direction.
02:02I would say that was the key for me that things can change very quickly. So even when I was not showing good results for the last couple of weeks, for the last couple of months, that was the only hope inside that I had that at least I was feeling that I'm practicing well, I'm feeling the ball well on practices.
02:25So let's wait just for the moment because in tennis, everything thinks that we have this sport, that everything can change so fast. We don't need to wait one more year or half year to be able to compete.
02:40We have tournaments every week and we have a lot of big tournaments. So as soon as you do one week good, of course, it will make you feel that you will forget about the weeks that were not that good.
03:01Congratulations, Andrey, for the win. A few days back, I asked you what was your main goal so far for the season. You said win one match. So far, what does it mean for you this victory for your season?
03:16I mean, I don't know what this victory means for my season, but for this week, it means a lot. I mean, it doesn't matter what's going to happen in the semifinal. For sure, it's already been a positive week for me with really great tennis because I played great tennis since the first match.
03:37So just the most important thing is somehow now to be able to rest, to recover, and then to do my best on Friday. And that's it.
03:50Andrey, last year you won with Karen Kashanov doubles. Apart from that, do you feel appreciated in Madrid? You beat the Spanish man, blah, blah. But how do you feel?
04:00Yeah, I feel great. I feel great. I like the city a lot. I like the restaurants here a lot. And I enjoy the atmosphere. Like I said, I enjoy it a lot today.
04:11I mean, all the spectators, they were supporting Carlos, which is normal and I understand completely because he's at home. But I don't know. I still was feeling positive. I was enjoying. I was feeling that there's a lot of people.
04:26A lot of people are into the tennis. They're really following what's happening on court. They're really into the match. You can feel that they're not came just to, OK, let's spend the time. You can see that they were really into the match. And it's a really nice feeling. And I was, yeah, I enjoyed.
