Carlos Alcaraz falls to Ben Shelton in a historic and agonizing match at the US Open

Until he couldn't take it anymore. As there were so many other times, Carlos Alcaraz refused to lose, he fought against Ben Shelton, against his own anxiety, against fatigue and vomiting and against an insane schedule, but he was finally eliminated in the super tie-break of the quarterfinals of the US Open by 6-7(5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6 and 7-6(7). In the middle of the night in New York - the game ended at 03:37 local time - there were four hours and 27 minutes of confidence and anguish, of fullness and vomiting, of all possible emotions, of all possible sensations, until a defeat to remember. After four months of inactivity, he arrived here. A victory would have been a miracle.

At least one victory like that, in five sets, after the feat. Because until the first set was decided, just after the first hour, Alcaraz maintained control of the game and everything pointed to a fast-track outcome. Shelton is the paradigm of the American tennis player. His serve causes vertigo - it reaches up to 239 km/h - and his forehand punishes, but his problems multiply when the exchanges exceed five strokes. At the start, Alcaraz benefited from his lack of touch and control, caught him on the backhand, dominated him and only had to resort to a tie-break due to an inexplicable counterbreak by Shelton that, seen later, was nothing more than a prelude.

At the beginning of the second set, everything changed. "I can't allow myself to fail, I can't, I can't," Alcaraz said to himself. And anxiety came over him. Blackout. Shelton's pressure with the serve and some major errors - a shot at will, for example - twisted his spirit until he chained failures and more failures. During the second and third sets it wasn't him. For no apparent reason, he lost energy, lost confidence in his forehand, lost his tune with the serve until he ended up delivering two breaks with both double faults. The match that seemed to be under control had completely slipped out of his hands. And just as he disappeared, he returned.