There was a lot of talk about a perceived weakness in the game of Carlos Alcaraz in the buildup to his semi-final with Taylor Fritz. His kryptonite, some suggested, is his tendency to wander, to lose a few games while his mind takes a breather, maybe even to drop a set. But what all those people overlooked was the fact that Alcaraz does whatever it takes to win and keeps doing it.

This is a man who has won five grand slam titles and is now one win away not only from a sixth, but also from a third straight Wimbledon title, something only Björn Borg, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic have ever managed in the Open era.

Sampras and Boris Becker, at their best, were the kings of this kind of efficiency. Knowing they were always likely to hold serve, they wouldn’t bother wasting energy in their opponents’ service games unless they won one of the first two points. Once they did, they would be fully engaged and, invariably, get the one break they needed to win the set. If they dropped a set, they’d just shrug it off.

Alcaraz does not have the same kind of serve as those two former champions but he has their ability to do what he needs to do when he needs to. Up or down, he never panics, almost always chooses the right shot at the right time and, when someone does come up with something special, as Fritz did when he won the second set or held two set points in the fourth, he just resets, raises his game and gets the job done.

Fritz had done brilliantly to make the semi-finals here for the first time, two points from defeat against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard of France in the first round and taken the distance by Gabriel Diallo in round two. The American went into the match saying he knew what he needed to do and, in parts, he played outstanding tennis. But as close as Fritz came to taking it to a decider, as well as he played and as hard as he tried, a sense of inevitability still ran through the match.

Carlos Alcaraz extended his winning run at Wimbledon to 20 matches. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

It’s the variety in the Alcaraz game that sets him apart. The first point of the match was a drop shot; there were loads more of those, many on critical points. He served brilliantly – in the first and third sets he did not lose a point on first serve and in the third he only lost one point on serve overall – and he served and volleyed 20 times, winning 16 of them, taking advantage every time Fritz tried to block the ball back in play on his forehand return. Lob volleys, angles, fake drop shots, he produced the lot.

When Alcaraz broke serve in the opening game of the match, thanks to a dead net cord, it was tempting to feel as if that was the match over, there and then. That’s no disrespect toward Fritz, who never dropped his head, never gave up hope. Nevertheless, the crowd, wafting their fans almost in unison on another day of intense heat, were mesmerised, hoping for a good battle but feeling like they knew the end result.

As Alcaraz maintained his advantage to take the first set, Leonardo DiCaprio sat enthralled in his sunglasses, Borg sat a short distance away, as relaxed as ever in the front row of the royal box. Fritz began to work his way into the match and lifted his own serving level, taking the attack to Alcaraz. A couple of stoppages in the crowd, which saw two fans needing treatment, broke Alcaraz’s concentration a little and the American took advantage, snatching the break back for 7-5 to level the match.

Momentum was with Fritz but what did Alcaraz do? He just reset, kept on smiling and raised his game again. There is still so much of the young kid about Alcaraz, the way he stands twirling his racket between points, the way he looks at the crowd, grinning in delight. Andre Agassi, the eight-time grand slam champion and 1992 Wimbledon winner, was waxing lyrical on BBC, relishing watching a man who makes tennis look fun.

The third set was a masterclass from Alcaraz, near-perfect serving and one break, achieved with another drop shot, lob volley combination, as he almost toyed with Fritz at times. And even when the American played his best tennis of the match in the fourth set, forcing two set points in the tie-break, Alcaraz just delved into his box of tricks, returning a 134mph Fritz serve on the first of them and forcing an error on the second, before going on to clinch his 20th straight win at Wimbledon and his 24th consecutive win this year. Winning is what he does.