Carlos Alcaraz shook the bee off his head nine minutes into the 2024 BNP Paribas Open quarter-final match at Indian Wells against Alexander Zverev.
The Spanish tennis player swung his racket to protect himself from the bees, which forced the match to be postponed for 1 hour 48 minutes. But he himself caused destruction with deadly balls to overthrow the German national, Zverev with a convincing result 6-3, 6-1 for a place in the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open.
“It was strange, I’ve never seen anything like that on a tennis court,” Carlos Alcaraz admitted. “We ran out of the field, we watched the bee attack on television, and we laughed a lot about it. That’s funny to me. This match will be remembered for that, not the tennis.”
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The strange incident emerged in the 20-year-old’s second service game of the match, when bees surrounded him and completely covered the spidercam at Stadium 1.
“I looked up at the sky and there were thousands of bees flying, tangled in my hair, chasing me. That’s crazy,” Alcaraz added.
A beekeeper was summoned to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, and the second seed prevented Zverev from beating him for the third time in the last six months.
The defending BNP Paribas Open champion put on a stunning performance after the postponement ended, including breaking sixth seed Zverev in his first service game and then building momentum in a match that lasted 1 hour 29 minutes.
“We decided to warm up again and I noticed the bees were no longer there. Only one or two. So, I try not to think about bees anymore. I try to stay focused on the ball, stay focused on the points.”
This was proven after he was able to show consistency to overcome Zverev, who at one time needed 34 strokes to break through the Spanish national’s defense for one point.
“I feel really happy with the level I showed,” said Alcaraz, who only made 13 unforced errors, much less than the 26 unforced errors made by the sixth seed.
“The way I use this court I think is really important for me, for my game. The opponent doesn’t know what will come next. It kind of confused them, that’s my style of play.”
The world number 2 dropped only four points from his first serve and is now 4-5 in head to head against Zverev.
The tennis player who has bagged 12 titles has now bagged ten wins in a row at Indian Wells. He advanced to the semifinals of the Masters 1000 tournament for the eighth time in his career and will meet Jannik Sinner, who beat him in four of their previous seven meetings.
“I don’t know how I will look at the game. “He is the best tennis player in the world at the moment, there is no doubt,” commented Alcaraz about Sinner. “He is playing extraordinary, no defeats yet this season. I really enjoy when he competes. So, it will be a really challenging match. That will be a big challenge for me.”
