Peter Gojowczyk and Carlos Alcaraz both had chances. Lots of them. But 32-year-old Gojowczyk didn’t have the legs to go the distance in his seventh match of the 2021 US Open, and after a trainer attended to his cramping legs before the fifth set, it was over quickly, 5-7, 6-1, 5-7, 6-2, 6-0.
Day wore into darkness as the match stretched on through 38 break points and four teeter-totter sets. By the fifth, neither man had ever had the momentum. Both still had every hope of making his first Grand Slam quarterfinal, and it would be against a non–Top 10 opponent, either No. 12 seed Felix Auger-Aliassime or unseeded Frances Tiafoe. The opportunity could not have been bigger.
Alcaraz got a double-break lead in the final set, just as he had to open the match. He had let that first-set lead go, though, as Gojowcyzk settled into the match and won seven of the next nine games.
“The first set was really, really tough,” he said. “But I start the second set with more power than the first set. I forgave the first set, and still focus on what I have to do in the second set. So it's a really good performance in the second set for me.”
But by the fifth set, Gojowcyzk’s first serve fell from an average of 121 mph to under 100 mph as the 32-year-old qualifier’s legs cried uncle. Gojowcyzk was in uncharted territory, playing his first Round of 16 at a Slam showing in 18 tries.
So was the much-hyped 18-year-old Alcaraz, the story of the tournament after beating No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas in a fifth-set tiebreak on Friday. He has already won an ATP Tour title, in Umag, Croatia, this year, matching Gojowcyzk in that department, and his ranking is up to No. 55, nearly 100 spots ahead of his opponent’s. And the hype machine has been going for a while. But this is the Spaniard’s first year playing the Slams, so despite the well-known promise, his appearance in the Round of 16 was a surprise. He met the moment against Tsitsipas in front of an electric Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd, inciting so many “youngest ever” factoids (youngest man to reach the US Open fourth round since 1988; to reach a Slam fourth round since 1992; to earn a Top 3 win since the ATP introduced rankings in 1973...) that the last two days have sounded SEO’d.
Whether Alcaraz could do it again as the match favorite, with more at stake, and in a less pulse-racing atmosphere, was a question mark.
For much of the match, Alcaraz struggled. The thunderclap forehand that Tsitsipas had called the hardest shot he’d ever faced produced only six winners through the first three sets. Gojowczyk’s backhand, his bigger shot, didn’t produce any. Both men were putting up sub-par first-serve percentages and more errors than winners.
The entertainment didn’t suffer, though. Hard-hitting rallies frequently stretched past 10 shots. Alcaraz occasionally got the crowd going with the kind of high-octane shots and defense that lit up Ashe two nights ago. Gojowczyk redirected Alcaraz’s heavy pace well, and his flat strokes stayed lower on the skiddy surface than Tsitsipas’s had. In the two sets Alcaraz lost, though, his errors piled up—he ended the match with 45 errors to 35 winners. But Gojowcyzk had 84 to 30 winners, 15 of those errors coming in the unfortunately compromised fifth set.
“In the first sets, I thought that I reach my limit physically and mentally. The crowd was really, really important for me in this situation,” Alcaraz said. “ I felt the energy of the crowd pushing me up. Without the crowd, I couldn't be possible be here.”
Gojowczyk felt the same. “The atmosphere was just amazing outside. If I get broken, it was so loud, but I really enjoy it, it was really nice. After the fourth set, I was cramping and not serving good because I cannot jump. I was struggling with myself, keep trying to say something to myself like, ‘Let’s keep trying, doesn’t matter how,’ but today it was impossible.”
WHAT IT MEANS: It’s official, Alcaraz is a star. The tournament’s breakout star on the men’s side set a litany of ‘youngest ever” records with this victory and gave the peanut gallery even more reason to compare him to his famous countryman, Rafael Nadal. Alcaraz’s intensity and muscular forehand have already drawn comparisons to the legendary champion. He also followed in Nadal’s footsteps by becoming the youngest man to be ranked as high as No. 54 since his countryman got there in 2004, and the youngest to reach the third round of a Slam (at the 2021 French Open) since you-know-who (at the 2004 Australian Open).
The comparisons have been irresistible. Now they are unquestionably justified. The hype has been fulfilled on the courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. And more history might be made.
MATCH POINT: This was the 33rd five-set match of the tournament. Three more and the 2021 US Open will break the record for the most ever. (35 were played in 1983.)
