London [UK], July 13 : Young Spanish tennis sensation Carlos Alcaraz stormed to his first-ever semifinal at the ongoing Wimbledon championships after he defeated Holger Rune in an entertaining semifinal match on Wednesday.
As per ATP, the clash between two 20-year-old stars ended in a 7-6(3), 6-4, 6-4 victory for Alcaraz.
Alcaraz's match against current world number six Rune was the first men's Wimbledon quarterfinal in Open Era (Since 1968) to be played between two players below the age of 21. This youthful energy and freedom kept the crowds engaged for the whole two hours and twenty minutes. World number one Alcaraz seemed to have the answer for every difficulty he faced and triumphed.
"It is amazing for me," Alcaraz said as quoted by ATP.
"It is a dream since I started playing tennis, making good results here at Wimbledon, such a beautiful and great tournament for me. It is a dream to play a semi-final here. I think I am playing at a great level. I did not expect to play at such a great level on this surface. For me it is crazy," he added.
This is Alcaraz's 45th tour-level win this season and he has reached his third major Grand Slam semifinal. His head-to-head record against Rune has improved to 2 wins and a loss.
"It was tough. In the beginning, I was really nervous, playing a quarter-final at Wimbledon and even more against Rune, who is the same age as me. He plays at a great level and it was tough to play against him. But I have said it a few times, once you take to court you are not friends you have to be focused on your side and I think I did great on that part," he added.
Alcaraz's next challenge will be world number three Russia's Daniil Medvedev.
Medvedev entered the semifinal with a thrilling five-set 6-4, 1-6, 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-1 win over Christopher Eubanks on Wednesday, his first grass-court major semi-final. The match lasted for almost three hours.
Eubanks was not even in the top 100 of the ATP Rankings four months back, but his solid run in London has caught everyone's attention.
Eubanks shot to fame initially after entering Miami Open in the qualifiers and reaching the quarterfinals. Even at that ATP Masters 1000 event, it was Medvedev who shattered his title aspirations with a 6-3, 7-5 win.
"After [the] first set for sure, I did not want to go five. When I lost the third, I wanted to go five because I had no other choice," Medvedev said after the match.
"But yeah, there was a moment in the match where I completely lost the game itself and he played well. I started to sink, I started to do a lot of mistakes, not serving well enough."
"Actually, in the third set, I managed to kind of step by step start to build something and not lose, let us say 6-1 again. And then it helped me in the fourth to just be there. I had more opportunities than him unfortunately on his serve, but did not manage to do it. But starting from the tie-break, I managed to play amazing and [I am] really happy about it," Medvedev concluded.
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