Like Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz needs four sets to get through first round at US Open

NEW YORK—Li Tu peaked too soon.

The 28-year-old, 186th-ranked Australian, who plays his tennis on the ATP Challenger Tour and had to qualify for the US Open, stunned third seed Carlos Alcaraz by taking the second set of their opening-round match on Tuesday. He also did something arguably more difficult: He upstaged the Spaniard, for roughly a set, with his grit and his shotmaking and his smile.

Tu, in a backwards cap and sleeveless shirt, started the way a lot of night-session rookies start: Slowly and nervously. But he kept fist-pumping, kept his energy high, kept the crowd engaged, and kept tracking down whatever Alcaraz missiles he could. Then he waited and hoped, like all of the overmatched Spaniard’s opponents do, for him to lose some concentration and start missing.

Tu got his wish with Alcaraz serving at 4-3 in the second set. Up a set and a break, Alcaraz, perhaps unconsciously, let his guard down. The errors started to fly, and Tu started to show off his own speed and shots. “You can stay with him,” Tu’s coach assured him, and it looked he believed it.

From 3-4 down in the second, Tu gave as good as he got from Alcaraz for the next 10 games. He ran him back and forth with his forehand, passed him with his dipping one-handed backhand, and beat him in cat-and-mouse games at net. He tried an underhand serve that ended up in the bottom of the net, but he shook it off with a smile.

Tu reached set point in the second set four times. On the last of them, he fired a backhand that caught the outside of the sideline, and which even Alcaraz couldn’t get back in the court. Tu had a set, and we, against all odds, had a match. “TUUUUUUUU” the fans in the upper deck hummed, as if they were at a Bruce Springsteen concert.

The good part of the match lasted for six more games, as Tu kept his level up, and Alcaraz struggled to find the court. Finally, at 3-3, Tu reached his peak. He won a long, rapid-fire rally with a series of massive forehands, and went up 30-0 on his serve. When the last of those forehands went past Alcaraz for a winner, Tu raised his hand to his ear and soaked in the applause. This time his coach told him to “back himself.”

Was that one piece of advice too many for him in that moment? On the next point, Tu tried for the spectacular again with a drop shot, but it didn’t work. Then he put a volley into the net to go down break point. Then Alcaraz pounded a ball into Tu’s weaker one-handed backhand to break. Alcaraz reacted with a scream of relief.

It felt like he knew he had control again, and he was right. He would win the next eight games to go up 5-0 in the fourth, and close out a fun but never quite nerve-wracking 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 win.