US Open Day 8 - Alcaraz vs. America

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The Tennis Podcast 1h 11m 3 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 13 days ago
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What made Carlos Alcaraz’s performance the highlight of Day 8?

Catherine Whitaker 0:10
Well, hello, and welcome to the Tennis Podcast, coming to you from Tennis Podcast Towers, New York, after a cracking day of fourth round action at Flushing Meadows. If you don't already know, I'm Catherine Whitaker, and alongside me are my comrades David Law and Matt Roberts, bringing you daily shows throughout this and every grand slam of the tennis season. And after one of the most brutal starts to a slam slam that we can remember in terms of late finishes. Here we are recording at ten PM. What are we gonna do with the many hours until four AM when our body clocks are expecting us to go to sleep?
Matt Roberts 0:49
I will be overriding that body clock and going to sleep.
Catherine Whitaker 0:54
That's the plan, anyway, folks. We are we are catching up with normality one day at a time. Let's start with the men's side of things today. Uh and after a a tough scene yesterday with Taylor Fritz bombing out unexpectedly, a fantastic set of American results today. Three of the four men that have come through this bottom half of the draw and into the quarterfinal. panels today are American Francis Diaffo, Alex Mickelson, and Ben Shelton. In theory, a 75% chance of an American man reaching the final from this half of the draw. The problem for them is that the one non-American is Carlos Alcaraz. And he, David, put on the performance of the day. 6'4, 6'3, 6'4 to beat poor old Tommy Paul. The only American man to be unsuccessful today.
Catherine Whitaker 1:50
Tell us about this Alcaraz performance.
David Law 1:55
I don't think it could have got any better other than if he'd had just taken all of his breakpoint chances. I think he sealed about four out of fourteen. But the fact that he set up fourteen breakpoints in three sets tells its own story. Um I don't even think Tommy Paul played badly in this match. He he was disappointed with elements of it in his in his postmatch press conference, but he said even if I'd have got those right. That doesn't mean I was gonna win. He started off in incredible fashion. I mean, this is a guy who'd beaten Alcraz in two of the two of their first three matches on hard courts in North America. And You know They always have good looking matches.

How did Frances Tiafoe secure his victory over Daniil Medvedev on Louis Armstrong Stadium?

David Law 2:37
He he he's one of those players that feels like he can move with Alcaraz to a degree. He he he's a shot maker. He likes flair. He likes these sort of rallies, these impossible passing shot rallies. Um it's just that Al Kraz does the same thing at about 30% better at least. And If you look at the record, I think it's it was 11 sets in a row that Al Kraz had won coming into this particular match. So that kind of leveled things out. And then some after the early struggles for Al Kraz. But still, Paul came out and he was feeling it out there in front of the New York crowd, which was full. And um and he he he was the one who got the gasps from around the net post forehand down the line on the full run, on the full stretch, hitting it sort of between the umpire's chair and the and and the the net post, right into the corner.
David Law 3:34
It was the most incredible shot. And the crowd were going wild for him. And that's when it was on serve in the early three or first four or five games of this match. And you're thinking, okay, well, he he's playing, he looks like he's playing as well as he can. Alkraz is fine at the moment. It feels competitive. And then suddenly Al Kraz put his foot down. And He made Tommy Paul look ordinary. Uh it was ex astonishing. It didn't look like Tommy Paul's game could trouble Alcraz in any way. It it didn't matter what shot he hit, Alkaz had an answer to. He was too fast. He was too powerful. His touch was a joke. I mean he hit several forehand drop shots moving backwards into the in the court. When he's just sort of
David Law 4:22
shaped up as if he's gonna blast a forehand and you have no clue it the the the drop shot is coming until the last second. You talked at the start of this tournament, Catherine, and he did in his press comments about his freshness of mind at this stage of the tournament, the stage of the year where everybody's so fried. Everybody's hanging on. And he's had five months without playing the sport and he's loving being back, Al Kraz.

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