It was not the greatest match Carlos Alcaraz had ever played but it did not matter. The defending champion had kept hold of the trophy for another round.

Yet even if it was not a match to frame and put in the trophy room, it was a nailbiter.

Tommy Paul tormented Alcaraz for two sets of the Spaniard’s 5-7, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 victory.

There were times when Alcaraz was brilliant, there were times when he was careless but, in the end, he was simply too much for Paul.

“Today was a really difficult match for me,” he said. “At the beginning of the first set and the beginning of the second set, it was kind of like I was playing on clay: big rallies, over 10 or 15 shots every point.

“I had to stay there strong mentally when I lost the first set. It was kind of difficult a little bit for me but I know this is a long journey, really long match so I had just had to stay there. I’m really happy to find the solutions and the good path.”

Yes, the champion knew he had been in a battle all right. Paul had played well but Alcaraz was able to pull rank the longer the match wore on. That’s what champions do.

A couple of years ago, Paul reached the fourth round here – his best Grand Slam result at the time. But instead of using that as a confidence booster and a platform for further success, he retreated into his shell. The pressure was getting to him.

As the US Open approached, his nerves were stretched to breaking point: he was now expected to do something special at his home Grand Slam.

That was when Brad Stine, his coach, took drastic action. He slapped his charge in the face. Twice. Before anyone gets upset, this was not an aggressive, abusive, rough-him-up action. It was just a small shock to “reset” Paul’s thinking, as Stine put it.

“I literally slapped him in the face, and I told him, ‘Hey, I need Tommy Paul. Like, where’s Tommy Paul? The guy who’s here right now is not Tommy Paul.’ I needed him to relax,” he told Marc McGowan of The Age in Melbourne last year.

Stine has yelled out the same instruction to the world No.13 since: “Be Tommy Paul.”

“He knows that means relax,” Stine went on. “Be loosey-goosey, be that guy, because when Tommy’s playing his best tennis, he deals with pressure extremely well.”

Certainly when the pressure has been on this year, Paul has handled it well on every surface. He won at Queen’s Club on grass and in Dallas on a hard court; he reached the semi-finals of the Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells on hard and Rome on clay and now, here he was, trying to force his way into the semi-finals at Wimbledon.

Facing him, though, was a young man who knows a thing or two about pressure. Alcaraz is only 21 and yet he has won a Grand Slam title in each of the last three years and became the youngest ever world No.1 in 2022.

He, too, plays his best tennis when he is relaxed (most players do) and that broad smile of his has put fear into the heart of many a player: “Oh, no; he’s smiling. He’s happy. I’m toast.”

Paul did not see the Alcaraz smile for three hours.

For 72 minutes, he had the Spaniard flummoxed. Moving like quicksilver, he attacked the net, he attacked the Alcaraz serve and he took the first set. The real Tommy Paul was in the house.

Alcaraz furrowed his brow and looked anxiously towards his box.

Up there he saw his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero, whom he thinks of as his second father (Dad No.1 was sitting a couple of places down looking proud if uneasy). JCF is a very different character to Stine, but, then again, his charge is a very different character to Paul. JCF gave a quiet nod of encouragement.

Alcaraz started again. Deep breath. And then he fluffed his service game. Another deep breath. And then the comeback began. Half an hour later, he had the second set but still no sign of the smile.

His serve was not firing properly and Paul was showing no signs of slowing down or losing heart.

But then, finally, when he got a second break in the third set (his sixth break of the match on his 22nd break point), the brows unknitted and he turned towards Dads Nos 1 and 2 with a look of confidence.

Ten minutes later, there was a glimmer of a grin. He had just set up another point for a double break with another backhand threaded down the line. He was on his way to an appointment with Daniil Medvedev in the semi-finals. Happy days.