I watched the last set of the match between the Serbian Slayer and the young Italian, and it was high-quality stuff. This young man beat him. Novak was not spraying unforced errors all over the place. Instead, this young gun was firing on all cylinders and hitting a lot of winners or otherwise forcing an error. He took this from the great man. It is the kind of match that makes you think that, if he can do this even half the time he plays, we may be looking at another top contender in the years to come. To have that kind of game is a rarity and under pressure, to boot! Even if he can play at 75% of that level fairly routinely, he will easily be in the top 30 within a short period of time. He had far better hands at the net than I expected, is serve is already a decent weapon and his back court game is able to push around the number one player in the world. I am not saying he is going to when the tournament in the let down should not be unexpected after such a momentous victory. What I am saying is that what I saw was better than I expected of someone his age not named Carlos Alcaraz.
