Carlos Alcaraz beats Nicolas Jarry in four sets to book his place in round of 16 at Wimbledon

Top seed Carlos Alcaraz dropped his first set at this year’s Wimbledon before rising decibel levels inspired him to take another step towards a dream final with Novak Djokovic.

Those increasingly raucous sounds came not only from the Centre Court crowd thoroughly engaged with a fantastic third round battle with Chile’s Nicolas Jarry but also emanated from Alcaraz’s own throat.

The 20-year-old Spaniard is rightly hailed as the outstanding talent of his generation and the natural successor the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic generation but boy can he roar.

All his ground strokes were accompanied by an audible grunt and when the tension grew with Jarry threatening to take the match into a fifth set, so did the volume.

There was a mighty ‘Whaaa..aargh’ every time the ball struck his racket – in contrast to his silent opponent – and it worked.

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Carlos Alcaraz won on centre court this afternoon as he chases his first Wimbledon title 

Chile’s Nicolas Jarry (left) won the second set and proved a worthy challenger to the World No 1 but it wasn’t to be

From 4-1 down in the fourth set, Alcaraz broke twice at the end of the set to clinch the match 6-3 6-7 6-3 7-5. In the royal box, football legend Gary Lineker rushed back to his seat just in time to catch the conclusion, having left for a break 20 minutes earlier fully expecting to return to see a deciding fifth.

By going into the second week of Wimbledon, Alcaraz matched his previous best performance in the tournament, last year’s run to the fourth round.

He is already a US Open champion and scarily for the rest he is also the youngest player in the world’s top 50 – he just happens to be at No1.

‘I used to watch epic Centre Court matches on television as a kid. To play here was something that I dreamed about even then,’ he said afterwards. ‘This court is something really special.’

‘I am just happy to get through this really tough match. I had to stay focussed because he served so well. I knew I’d get chances but it was close. The key for me was to always stay believing.’

Jarry has something of a chequered past having been banned for 11 months after testing positive for Ligandrol and anabolic steroid stanozclol in 2019 though it was later accepted he hadn’t done it intentionally.

The 27-year-old was nonetheless received warmly by the crowd who split their loyalties between him and Alcaraz.

A single break when Jarry served with new balls at 3-4 was enough to give Alcaraz the opening set 6-3 in 44 minutes.

Alcaraz will now play either Matteo Berrettini or Alexander Zverev in the round of 16

The World No.1, who is just 20-years-old, is making a strong claim to be Wimbledon’s winner this year

He also had set point in the second set tiebreak but Jarry saved it by going serve and volley and when Alcaraz netted a backhand, the match was all square.

There were fears for the youngster when he did the splits after being wrongfooted by Jarry in the third set. The Chilean walked to the net to enquire after his opponent collapsed on the floor but Alcaraz gave him the thumbs up before resuming.

The intensity also had its lighter moments. Jarry skewed a shot so high it shot up 50 feet and struck the roof before bouncing back on Alcaraz’s side. He looked perplexed why he hadn’t been given the point!

Alcaraz went through his repertoire of crazy spins and also hit a bagel shot between his legs much appreciated by the crowd and after missing set points at 5-2, wrapped up the third in his next service game.

He then went from the entertainer to Mr Grump after a lapse of concentration allowed Jarra into a 4-1 lead. Alcaraz’s mood wasn’t helped by challenging a Jarra shot to the baseline only for Hawkeye to detect a few stands of ball fuzz on the line.

Alcaraz got louder in his hitting but more effective. He put away a half-volley to break back to 3-4 and then at 5-5, Jarry blinked first.

He hit two risky shots right onto the back of the baseline but instead of counting his blessings, then sent the next haymaker into the tramline.

 Jarry received a loud ovation from the Centre Court crowd despite defeat to Alcaraz

It left Alcaraz serving for the match and he didn’t waste the opportunity, getting to match report with a booming 128mph serve and then sending down another unreturnable to book his place in the last 16.

The way he lifted his two arms aloft to celebrate as both players received a standing ovation signified what a difficult contest it had been for the young pretender.

Jarry got another big ovation as he left the court and it was nice to see Alcaraz applauding him all the way as he waited for his on-court interview with Annabel Croft.

Up in the box, Lineker led the applause too. He just might want to bring his earplugs next time and it’s something Alcaraz should keep an eye, or ear, on. He is too good to be drawn into a row over grunting as happened to Monica Seles all those years ago.

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