Carlos Alcaraz finds his game exactly when he needed to against Emil Ruusuvuori

The seats in Estadio Manolo Santana, even the expensive ones, were full. The Spanish VIPs were in their court-side boxes. The tournament’s owner, Ion Tiriac, was basking in the expectant atmosphere. The reason for all of the buzz? At the center of the scene was the new local hero of tennis, Carlos Alcaraz, back to defend his crown from a year ago.

There was only one problem: It was Alcaraz’s opponent and presumed patsy for the day, Emil Ruusuvuori, who was putting on the show. This was obviously a surprise to the people in the arena, but it shouldn’t have come as a shock to diehard tennis fans. The 24-year-old Finn had beaten Alcaraz in their only previous meeting, two years ago in Miami. At the time, with his rangy game and rifled forehand, he seemed almost as likely as the Spaniard to climb the rankings in the coming years. While it hasn’t happened yet for Ruusuvuori, the Top 20 potential is still clearly there, and he has begun to fulfill it this spring, with decent runs in Miami, Monte Carlo and Barcelona.

That momentum, and the fact that he had nothing to lose against Alcaraz, helped Ruusuvuori run away with the first set 6-2. It didn’t hurt that Alcaraz was clearly nervous and pressing. He went for too much too soon, he hit off his back foot, he sent his ground strokes long and wide and into the net, he misfired with his drop shot. In the second set, Alcaraz looked to his coaching team for help, “Vamos”ed even more often than normal, and tried to bring the crowd into it. Yet nothing could make the calm and collected Ruusuvuori go away.

Serving at 2-3, Alcaraz found himself staring at five break points. One more mistake and he could be quickly down 6-2, 5-2. But he didn’t make that mistake. Instead, the old Alcaraz, the good Alcaraz, the depending champ Alcaraz, finally appeared. He saved one break point with a shoe-top drop volley; another with a backhand winner; another forehand winner; and another with a volley winner. When Alcaraz’s game had to be there, it was.

On the other side of the net, Ruusuvuori had pushed as far as he could, for as long as he could. When he missed a backhand at break point in the following game, the stress went out of the building, and out of Alcaraz. At 5-4, he held at love for the second set; he broke in the first game of the third; from there he ran out a 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 win. He had lived to play another day at home, and the celebration of the new hero was finally on.