Carlos Alcaraz is brilliant. But the Big One era isn’t upon us quite yet

Like Michael Myers with a tennis racket, he just keeps coming. If we learned nothing else from Carlos Alcaraz’s sensational run to the US Open title, it’s that one would-be winner is rarely enough to stop him. Often two or three won’t do. For two weeks in New York, the best teenager in men’s tennis since Rafael Nadal nearly two decades ago turned would-be killshots into crowd-pleasing additions to his ever-expanding highlight reel, keeping points alive with his incomparable all-court movement, impeccable touch and taste for the fight. He is a hell of a player.

The record will show that Alcaraz formally became the youngest No 1 in the history of the ATP’s world rankings with Sunday’s four-set win over the Norwegian Casper Ruud to capture his first grand slam title. But the 19-year-old from the small village of El Palmar on Spain’s southeastern coast practically earned his trophy in the run-up, surviving three consecutive five-set affairs to reach the title match, something no player had managed in 30 years.

There was his five-setter in the fourth round against the 2014 US Open champion Marin Cilic, which ended at 2.23am on Tuesday. Then a heart-stopping 5hr 15min quarter-final win from match-point down in the fourth against Jannik Sinner that ended before a few hundred fans at 2.50am, the latest finish in tournament history. And that was before he was again made to go the distance against Frances Tiafoe in the semi-finals, holding off both a homestanding opponent brimming with confidence and the sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd squarely in the 24-year-old American’s corner.

As he bound toward the finish line on Sunday evening having earned the decisive break in the fourth set, Alcaraz had spent more time on court than