To an extent, all tennis players are escapologists. The ability to extricate yourself from difficult positions on court, particularly the corners of the court, and in the process turn defence into attack is one of the requirements of a top player. But as he again proved against Andrey Rublev in the fourth round at Wimbledon over the weekend, Carlos Alcaraz is taking tennis escapology to such a new level, not just within individual points but within whole matches, that he is fast becoming the 21st century’s Harry Houdini.
Alcaraz The Ultimate Escapologist Against Rublev
Alcaraz was at his untrappable best against Rublev. Indeed, he had to be, because Rublev was probably at his absolute best against Alcaraz, showing a new-found calmness, composure and ability to come back from difficult situations that enabled him to win the first set on a tie-break 7-5, even after having fallen behind 5-3.
And yet as Alcaraz has demonstrated numerous times throughout his career and particularly in recent months at both the French Open and Wimbledon, he seems to have no fear of losing a set, or even two, because he is so convinced that his superior all-round play and incomparable physical conditioning will eventually allow him to win the match. And so it proved against Rublev, as he produced his finest form of the tournament to win the next three sets 6-3 6-4 6-4.
If there was a turning-point in the match, it came in the seventh game of the third set. That was when Alcaraz somehow resisted a barrage of what appeared to be Rublev winners by racing Road-Runner-like from one side of the court to the next, before channelling his inner Novak Djokovic to slide out wide and while at full stretch (and seemingly in a full horizontal position) swipe a forehand winner past Rublev at the net. Even the watching BBC TV commentator declared it “impossible” and if ever one single point won a whole match, this was it, because Rublev never seriously challenged again.
Doing The Seemingly Impossible Is a Key Part of the Alcaraz Game
Of course, doing the seemingly impossible is a key part of the Alcaraz game; indeed, it may even be his defining quality. Although he had already reached the quarterfinals of the 2021 US Open, en route defeating the No.3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, Alcaraz arguably first demonstrated his penchant for doing the impossible six months later at the Rio Open at the start of 2022. Then, in a dramatically rain-shortened tournament that meant he had to play the quarterfinal, semifinal and final all within 24 hours and all against much higher-ranked players, he somehow won the tournament and proved that all the hype about him was justified.
Since then, Alcaraz has achieved many landmark victories that have only emphasised his seemingly limitless capacity for achieving the utterly improbable, if not downright impossible: becoming the only man ever to beat Djokovic and Rafael Nadal at the same clay-court event, in Madrid in 2022; becoming the youngest man to become World No.1 since rankings began in the early 1970s when he won the US Open in September 2022; and recovering from a first-set beatdown to win the 2023 Wimbledon final against Djokovic for what is probably the finest maiden Wimbledon victory in the Open Era.
Of course, it was only a month ago when Alcaraz performed his greatest ever act of escapology on a tennis court when he came from two sets down against Jannik Sinner to win the French Open final in what is undoubtedly the greatest ever men’s final at Roland Garros. Near the end of the third set, Sinner actually had three matchpoints on Alcaraz’s serve, but, as is already tennis history and legend, Alcaraz somehow survived them, then survived Sinner’s own comeback at the end of the fifth set (when he broke Alcaraz as he was serving for the match) to win at a canter in the match tiebreak.
Is The Need To Escape Part of Alcaraz’s Tennis DNA?
Indeed, so often has Alcaraz somehow extricated himself from seemingly impossible positions within both individual points, for example against Rublev at Wimbledon, and whole matches, as against Sinner at Roland Garros, that it is possible to speculate that the need to escape – the need to demonstrate his incomparable ability to produce the seemingly impossible – is a fundamental part of his DNA as a tennis player.
It might even explain why he so often loses sets early on in Grand Slams, as if somehow he needs to be jolted into life, or to have his back against the wall, before he can really access his incomparable adrenaline rush and then take the match away from an opponent. It is certainly a major point of difference with Sinner, his greatest contemporary rival, who so often seems to be a tennis scientist – all steady progress and ultra-rational court positioning and shot choice – rather than a tennis alchemist like Alcaraz.
The Wimbledon Hat-Trick Beckons
Halfway through Wimbledon 2025, a hat-trick of Wimbledon titles beckons for Alcaraz. In addition to his own superb form, which has carried on from Roland Garros to Queen’s, the traditional Wimbledon warm-up tournament, and now to Wimbledon itself, his chances have been boosted by the Wimbledon draw. His two greatest rivals, Sinner and Djokovic, are in the same half of the draw, meaning that he will only have to face one of them at this tournament.
Of course, Alcaraz still has two matches to go before he can plan for a final against Sinner, Djokovic or anyone else. However, for all his heroics against Nicolas Jarry in a fourth-round five-set classic, Cameron Norrie will struggle to match Alcaraz in the quarterfinal (even if it is played on Norrie’s beloved No.1 Court) and if he wins that match Alcaraz would also be the strong favourite against whoever wins the other quarterfinal between Taylor Fritz and Karen Khachanov.
If Alcaraz does achieve his first trilogy of Wimbledon titles this coming weekend (a result that would be celebrated by FedHeds as much as by Alcaraz acolytes, because it would preserve Roger Federer’s current status as The King of Grass), there would still be new worlds for him to conquer. Ultimately, of course, he hopes to catch up and even overtake The Big Three, who all won at least 20 Major titles. And even if that long-term target should ultimately remain out of reach, he can achieve something that The Big Three never managed, namely a Calendar Slam.
That feat has often been pronounced impossible, now that the four Majors are played on three different surfaces. (The only two men to achieve the Calendar Slam, Don Budge and Rod Laver, did so when three of the four Majors were played on grass.) But if anyone can achieve the impossible, it is surely Alcaraz, as he has already proved so often throughout his career.
Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
