![]() ![]() He won the game with a lunging backhand lob that sent Ruud scrambling back to the baseline, where he hit a tweener that Alcaraz, back at the net, punched away to force a tiebreaker with the crowd giving him nothing but positive feedback. He saved the next by serving and volleying and finishing off the point with an overhead shot. Serving in the 12th game of the third set, he saved one set point by approaching the net and hitting a deft angled forehand volley winner. But Alcaraz was having none of it, even if there were some moments in the second and third sets where his energy levels seemed to dip and his full-cut groundstrokes lacked some of their customary punch.īut as champions do, he found a way, and as not all champions do, he did so by attacking when threatened rather than playing the waiting game. That was part of him winning three five-set matches in a row that finished near midnight or well after and kept him from going to sleep until much of the city was starting to wake up.Īnd all that was just to reach the final, where a letdown would have been entirely understandable. He had to save a match point against Jannik Sinner of Italy in the quarterfinals. Everything came so fast.”Īlcaraz now belongs in the same paragraph even if he never made it look remotely that easy in New York. “I never thought I was going to achieve something like this at 19 years old. “It’s crazy for me,” he said on Sunday night. Sunday was one of those moments, and now he and we know for certain that Alcaraz is the mega-talent that men’s tennis was anxiously hoping would surface with the Big Three - Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer - riding toward the fading light. He sensed after winning the Miami Open final over Ruud in early April that Grand Slam titles were within his reach.īut no matter how clear the potential and how dynamic the game, you never truly know what a tennis player is capable of until they have to fight for the biggest points on the biggest occasions. King Charles III wore a kilt.Sunday’s four-set victory over Casper Ruud of Norway was secured in a sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium with the roars of nearly 24,000 fans rumbling off the closed retractable roof as Alcaraz lunged and leaped straight into the winner’s circle and the collective consciousness.Īlcaraz ticked that big box quite some time ago when he upset the likes of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal this season on his acrobatic, gravity-defying way to trophies on tour and early acclaim. ![]() ![]() Prince Edward and Princess Anne wore military uniforms but Prince Andrew, stripped of his honorary titles earlier this year amid the fallout of a sex scandal, wore a dark suit with military medals. When the Queen Mother died in 2002, her four grandsons, Charles, Andrew, Edward and David Armstrong-Jones, Princess Margaret’s only son, carried out the duty. The tradition – known as the Vigil of the Princes – goes back to the death of George V in 1936. Hands bowed, as members of the public quietly passed them by, King Charles, Princess Anne and Princes Andrew and Edward spent ten minutes standing guard and were clearly moved by the moment, as Camilla, Queen Consort, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex, looked on. There will be defining images to come in the days ahead but the sight of the Queen’s four children quietly standing vigil, her coffin draped in the royal standard, adorned with a crown first worn by James V in 1540 and a wreath of her favourite flowers, will be hard to forget. King Charles III joined his brothers and sister to stand ceremonial guard around the Queen’s coffin at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh. ![]()
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