2024-01-13 01:32:05
The Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz This Friday he completed his preparation for the Australian Open, the first ‘Grand Slam’ of the season that starts this Sunday in Melbourne, following winning an exhibition match once morest the Norwegian Casper Ruud.
The Murcian, who will start in the ‘big’ as second seed following the great favorite, the Serbian Novak Djokovic, will debut this Monday once morest the Frenchman Richard Gasquet in a tournament from which he was absent last due to injury and in which in 2022 He was eliminated in the third round by the Italian Matteo Berrettini and in the second in 2021 by the Swede Mikael Ymer.
And for the assault on the only ‘Grand Slam’ in which he has not reached the second week, The tennis player from El Palmar has had a preparation without official matches since he was eliminated on November 18 by Djokovic in the semifinals of the ATP Finals in Turin (Italy) and has been limited to playing matches with nothing at stake although with important rivals.
After ‘closing’ 2023 with an exhibition in Mexico with the American Tommy Paul (7-6, 6-3), he returned to action in Saudi Arabia at the end of the year playing in Riyadh once morest the world number one, a ‘friendly ‘ resolved with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory. A day later he faced his compatriot Roberto Bautista in Murcia, also with a 7-6, 1-6, 10/7 victory.
From there, Alcaraz continued training and earlier this week traveled to Melbourne for his final tune-up with two exhibition matches at a packed Rod Laver Arena. The first was this Wednesday, resulting in a defeat once morest the local Alex de Miñaur, ten in the world, 6-4, 5-7, 10/3, and the second this Friday once morest the Norwegian Casper Ruud, eleven in the ranking whom he beat 6-4, 6-2.
“Always a pleasure to share the track with Casper. We played very good games and we trained a lot too. It has been a good test to see where my level is and it is great to practice with him before the tournament,” said Alcaraz following the exhibition.
The Murcian was also asked by Rafa Nadal following a photo was shown on the video scoreboards from when he was “13 years old” with the Manacorí and with whom he always has “nerves” when he meets him inside or outside the pit. “He is my idol and my model since he started playing tennis, so I think those nerves will always appear, it is something impossible to avoid,” he said.
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