“It was difficult for me. I tried to pull out all the nerves at the beginning of the second set, and I was really happy to be up 3-1. After that, I could play my own game, I could enjoy the match a little more, and I moved pretty well. In general, I think I played a really good match.”
With Ash Barty and her mother Josie watching from the royal box, Alcaraz lost the first set for the third time in his past four matches this fortnight against Medvedev, including being two-sets-to-one down to Frances Tiafoe in the round of 32.
And there was drama along the way.
Medvedev was infuriated when experienced chair umpire Eva Asderaki called a double bounce as he desperately lunged at an Alcaraz drop shot on break point while trying to serve for a one-set lead at 5-3.
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A dumbfounded Medvedev instantly directed some words towards Asderaki, who came down from her chair to discuss the situation with tournament officials before issuing him with a code violation for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“I don’t know if it was double bounce or not. I thought no. That was tricky,” Medvedev said post-match.
“The thing is that once long ago [at] Roland Garros against [Marin] Cilic I lost, and she didn’t see that was one bounce. So, I had this in my mind. I thought, again, against me. I said something in Russian, not unpleasant, but not over the line. So, I got a code for it.”
The incident did not further fluster Medvedev, who raced through the tiebreak in dominant fashion. But there was an inevitability about the contest from the time Alcaraz ran down a volley from the Russian and flicked a crosscourt forehand for a winner to snatch a 3-1 second-set lead.
Medvedev’s first-serve percentage dipped, and he started finding it far tougher to hit through Alcaraz, with 11 of his 31 winners coming in the first set.
Alcaraz’s strategy was to avoid being stuck in elongated rallies with Medvedev, who also ventured to the net 11 times more than any other match he played this year with mixed success.
Alcaraz beat Daniil Medvedev in the Wimbledon semi-finals again.Credit: Getty Images
However, the third set kicked off with a dazzling 21-shot rally, during which Alcaraz scampered back to the baseline to hit a ’tweener to keep himself in the point before barely missing a crosscourt backhand that would have been a winner.
Alcaraz’s light-up-a-stadium smile followed, and the point proved but a minor setback. He broke Medvedev two games later before cruising to a two-sets-to-one lead.
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They traded breaks to start the fourth set – the Russian converting his first chance since the opening set – but it was not the start of an unlikely comeback, with Medvedev misfiring on a backhand to drop serve again and fall behind for good at 4-3.
Alcaraz, who bludgeoned 55 winners, leaned back and roared with joy after one last Medvedev forehand landed wide to seal his passage to back-to-back Wimbledon finals.
His next challenge will be even greater, given Djokovic looks a different player at this end of the tournament to the one who dropped sets to British wildcard Jacob Fearnley and Australia’s Alexei Popyrin.
Musetti, playing his maiden grand slam semi-final as Djokovic clocked up No.49, held up his end of the bargain with some spectacular shot-making. But he will rue not capitalising on his second-set advantage, at a time the Serbian superstar ever-so-slightly dipped his level.
The Italian hit a barely believable backhand winner on the run from almost off the court to go 3-1 up, while he also rocketed an outrageous forehand winner in the eventual tiebreak.
The problem for Musetti was Djokovic always had an answer. At five-all in the same set, and in an 0-30 hole, Djokovic rifled four consecutive first serves that did not come back – the last three were aces.
There has arguably never been a better tennis player in the clutch, and he broke Musetti to start the third set, which proved just enough to hold on. The Italian saved triple match point in the ninth game, then earned himself a break-back point in the next game, only to dump a forehand into the net.
That proved Musetti’s last chance.
“Wimbledon has always been a childhood dream for me – to play it, to win it,” Djokovic said.
“I was a seven-year-old boy in Serbia, watching the bombs fly over my head and dreaming of being on the most important court in the world, which is here at Wimbledon, constructing [an imaginary] Wimbledon trophy out of any material I had in the room … and telling myself I’d be a Wimbledon champion one day.
“Hopefully, I can get my hands on the trophy on Sunday.”
Earlier, Australia’s teenage prodigy Emerson Jones swept aside Poland’s Monika Stankiewicz 6-2, 6-3 in 56 minutes to reach the junior girls’ semi-finals, where she will take on American sixth seed Iva Jovic.
Emerson Jones is into the junior girls’ semi-finals.Credit: AP
A rematch of the Australian Open junior final with top seed Renata Jamrichova looms if she and third-seeded Jones, 16, can both win their final-four clashes.
Jones, who in May became the youngest player ever to win multiple J500 titles, is bidding to become Australia’s first girls’ champion at Wimbledon since Ash Barty in 2011. She is considered the country’s best prospect since the former world No.1.
“I did some good training with [Barty] on the grass in Brisbane before I came here. It was great. Her ball was so good, like, when she sliced,” Jones told this masthead.
“It’s so special to be following in her footsteps … so hopefully I can try to do that. She’s so inspiring, and to be in the semis of junior Wimbledon is great.”
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