MELBOURNE, Australia — Alexander Zverev vented angrily on the court when Carlos Alcaraz was given a medical timeout in the third set of the Australian Open semifinals, and he did not back down after losing an epic five-setter that lasted nearly 5 1/2 hours.
Zverev had spoken out for the first time on Friday during post-match press conferences in the semi-finals, more or less repeating what he had said to a tournament supervisor on the court: he believed Alcaraz was having cramps and that this was not a reason for a medical timeout.
“Normally you can’t take a medical timeout because of cramps,” he said after the longest semi-final ever at the Australian Open. “What can I do? It’s not my decision. I didn’t like it, but it’s not my decision.”
Alcaraz arrived for his official press conference about two hours later and said he needed an assessment because the pain was very localized. That’s within the rules.
The 22-year-old Spaniard said he had had cramps before, but this felt different because it was “only on one muscle, so I didn’t think it was a cramp at all at first.”
It wasn’t particularly warm by Melbourne standards; the afternoon match started with temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit), but dropped to around 27 degrees Celsius (80F) when Alcaraz began wrestling about 2 hours and 40 minutes into the match.
“So I didn’t know exactly what it was because I just went to a forehand and then I started feeling it right in the right adductor,” he said. “That’s why I called the physio, because it was exactly that moment.”
He said his left leg was fine at the time.
It all started in the ninth game of the third set – with Alcaraz two sets ahead – when he started limping and appeared to be struggling with a problem in his right leg.
After holding 5-4, he took a medical timeout during the changeover. He rubbed the inside of his right thigh and called over the trainer, who also massaged the same area.
“With all the stress of not knowing what was going on, not knowing if it was going to get worse or not, it all came,” Alcaraz said. “At that point I just talked to the physio. … He decided to take the medical timeout.”
Even with his limited footwork, Alcaraz hit winners to get to 6-5 before the trainer came back in substitution to massage the spot again.
When he went back out, the crowd gave him rousing support. Zverev served a double fault to open the next game, and Alcaraz lobbed and then hit a forehand winner down the line to move to 0–30, moving within two points of victory. But Zverev won four straight points to force the tiebreak and then win.
Third-seeded Zverev said that although he won the next two sets, he missed an opportunity to win them faster and reserve energy for the fifth.
“Incredible fight, struggle. An unfortunate ending for me, but to be honest, I had absolutely nothing left in me,” he said. “Normally I can rely on my serve a little more. My legs weren’t pushing up anymore, so yeah, that’s how it is. This is life. We move on.”
The issue of the timing of rules interventions has sparked widespread public debate since the tournament’s extreme heat policy was activated as two-time defending champion Jannik Sinner struggled with cramps in his third-round match. After a break to close the roof, Sinner returned with much more energy and rallied to win.
There was also a lot of online speculation about the medical timeout. But Zverev felt it was time to let it go.
“To be honest, I don’t want to talk about this right now because I think this is one of the best battles that has ever happened in Australia,” he said. “It doesn’t deserve to be the topic now.”
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