Carlos Alcaraz advances at US Open after slight hiccup: ‘surprised me a little bit’

Li Tu, the Australian qualifier who drew 2022 U.S. Open champion Carlos Alcaraz, talked a big game in the lead-up to their opening-round match.

Tu planned to give Alcaraz “three, four, five sets of hell.” He gave the third seed more than most observers — including Alcaraz — expected .

“He surprised me a little bit,” Alcaraz said after his 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory — his 15th straight win in a grand slam — under the lights at Arthur Ashe Stadium. “The first set it was obvious he started the match nervous. After the first set, he grew up. He started to play really great tennis. I was surprised. I’m going to follow him — his results — from now because I’m pretty sure if he is playing at this level, I’m going to see him around very, very soon.”

Early on, it seemed like the 21-year-old Alcaraz would cruise.

He won 11 of the match’s first 12 points and rolled to the first set.

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Tu was nervous, mishitting shots and looking overwhelmed playing in the big stadium.

He, however, built up some confidence by being able to get two games off Alcaraz in that tail end of that first set, and took it to him in the second.

He broke Alcaraz twice and had five set points.

On the fifth one, he cashed it in, evening the match at one set apiece.

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It was a rare sloppy display by Alcaraz, who had 18 unforced errors in the set.

It marked the first time the Spaniard had dropped a set in the opening round of a grand slam since Wimbledon in 2022.

“After the first set, I made just two unforced errors. The second set I made 18. So that was the huge difference for me,” Alcaraz said. “He started to play better. [He was] obviously serving better, playing more aggressive, and not making a lot of mistakes that he did in the first set. But talking about myself, it was from two to 18 unforced errors [that was] a huge difference for me.”

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Alcaraz settled down from there.

He won 12 of the final 16 games, and nine of the last 10, to advance in 2 hours, 42 minutes.

He didn’t lose his serve in the final two sets, cut down on his mistakes and moved on to face unseeded Dutchman Botic van De Zandschulp in the second round on Thursday.

The winner of this year’s French Open and Wimbledon, Alcaraz is looking to join Rod Laver (1969) and Rafael Nadal (2010) as the only players to win those two slams along with the U.S. Open in the same year.

He’s planning on staying in Queens a while, and potentially making some history as well.

“I love playing here in New York,” Alcaraz said. “The crowd gives you an energy that probably you don’t feel in other courts.”

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