Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz puts on a show to beat Daniil Medvedev on Center Court… and is now one game away from defending his Wimbledon crown

• Carlos Alcaraz defeated Daniil Medvedev to reach the Wimbledon final on Sunday
• Medvedev was perhaps lucky to avoid being snubbed early in the contest
• Alcaraz will face either Novak Djokovic or Lorenzo Musetti in Sunday’s final

Carlos Alcaraz is one step away from becoming a back-to-back Wimbledon champion after seeing off Daniil Medvedev to reach Sunday’s final.

The Spaniard dropped the first set in a tie-break but looked untroubled afterwards and settled down with a 6-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win, with either Novak Djokovic or Lorenzo Musetti on waiting.

Events could have ended much sooner for the world No.3 had Medvedev been ruled out of Wimbledon after what appeared to be a heavy volley of abuse at umpire Eva Asderaki.

The Russian was broken when serving for the first set, and on the final point, umpire Asderaki said “not up” as the ball bounced twice before Medvedev could get to it.

Head of series no. 5 responded and during the change Asderaki called supervisor Wayne McKewen and tournament referee Danise Parnell onto the court and the three had a lengthy discussion that delayed the restart of the match.

In the end, they decided to only issue a warning for verbal abuse rather than kick Medvedev out of the tournament and end the first men’s semifinal after less than a set.

Tim Henman, commenting for the BBC, said: “It’s probably more around verbal abuse.

“If you use an expletive you will get a code violation, a warning and a fine, but if you verbally abuse the referee then there is a question mark. It could be default.

“Just from where we’re sitting to see the umpire come off the umpire’s chair, to see the umpire and the supervisor walk onto the field, that doesn’t happen unless something happened.”

For Alcaraz, not even Medvedev’s early woes could detract from another landmark victory.

The 21-year-old will be contesting a fourth major final and a second in a row after his maiden French Open title last month and it could be a repeat of last year’s performance when Alcaraz spectacularly defeated Djokovic in five sets.

The spark for Alcaraz here came in the third game of the second set, when she won a great all-court rally to hold serve, putting her finger to her ear to encourage the crowd to cheer harder.

And it was the third seed who roared towards his box, which included Real Madrid star Luka Modric, moments later when a forehand pass whipped into the area gave him the break for 3-1.

Medvedev’s net forays now veered towards the reckless and became less frequent as the Russian focused on trying to withstand the barrage of pressure from the other end.

Alcaraz had found his magician’s way, drawing gasps from the crowd for a moment with the power of his groundstrokes before throwing punches to leave Medvedev scrambling.

There were still bizarre moments of lack from Alcaraz, like the overhead miss late in the set that left him comically holding his head in his hands, or the sloppy play he played to allow Medvedev to pull away early in the fourth set.

But they were vastly outnumbered by the sublime and he wrapped up victory after two hours and 55 minutes when a final Medvedev forehand flew wide.