Alex Corretja was giving some insight into the behind the scenes with Alcaraz after he won the quarters. Apparently Ferrero was struggling to contain Carlos' energy, CA has basically worked himself up too much regarding the long overdue match. Alex said he spoke to Carlos after the demolition of Tsitsipas about how he is feeling, and was concerned when Carlos said that he is already thinking about Djokovic and wants to play the match right now. Alex looked at Ferrero almost concerned that Alcaraz was expending too much energy getting amped up this far out from the match. Ferrero also later told Alex, that Alcaraz couldn't wait to get onto the courts the very next morning and wanted to play a match straight away, he was insisting on it.
I think the whole moment got to him and he psyched himself out, draining himself of a lot of emotional energy due to being so high strung. The question was about who was the real number one, it was not just about who would get to the RG final, the fact these two had owned the tour almost parallel to each other and never played was a situation that we had never ever seen before...the top two guys would meet more often than not. Djokovic won Wimbledon, Alcaraz won USO, Djokovic wins YEC, Alcaraz wins year ending number one, Djokovi wins AO, Alcaraz wins IW and Madrid....the will they won't they narrative played on CA's mind, and when it finally happened, he got too out of control.
Add to this mind games, Djokovic did that celebration after winning at AO which was a clear calling out of CA, who has the tattoo with the very saying...so CA sends out a tweet with that before the match.
The match in the first two sets was brutal, but CA was going at 100% on virtually everything, and his body which was already running on adrenaline since Tuesday started to give out on him. It is why you saw Ferrero telling him to calm down, he simply couldn't control himself....a huge learning curve and experience for him to take from this. Add to this Novak came with a clear game plan and was planning to peak for CA from the start, and the massive let down happened.