It was Draper, instead of Alcaraz, who wowed the crowd with his dive-bombing topspin forehands, his short-angle backhand passes, and his deftly disguised drop shots, all of which are usually specialties of the Spaniard. Alcaraz, meanwhile, sent easy second-serve returns long, and routine rally backhands wide.
“I did a lot of mistakes at the beginning,” Alcaraz said. “I wanted to play really, really aggressive on this court. For me this court is slower than the other tournaments.”
“I had to overcome my problems.”
As often happens in these situations, the higher-ranked player got back in the match with a little help from the lower-ranked player. In his opening service game of the second set, Draper shanked three forehands long and was broken. Now it was Alcaraz’s turn to show off his vaunted array of weapons. He drilled a down-the-line forehand past Draper to go up 3-0, and held at 5-2 with a volley winner, a forehand winner, a service winner, and a drop shot winner.
Alcaraz remained in command for the first seven games of the third as well. But Draper kept in touch on the scoreboard, and kept just enough pressure on Alcaraz to make him nervous. Serving at 4-3, the Spaniard couldn’t hold his nerve any longer, and he made three wild ground-stroke errors. Draper broke for 4-4, and held for 5-4. Suddenly, Alcaraz was serving to stay in the match.