2024-04-30 18:15:12
Carlos Alcaraz won the Tennis Masters 1000 tournament Madrid reached the quarter-finals after a thriller. The winner of the last two editions breaks the German Jan-Lennard Struff Tuesday after almost three hours of play with 6:3,6:7(5),7:6(4).
Russian Andrej Rublew, who is in seventh place, now awaits the Spaniard, who was seeded second. The top seed is also struggling Jannik Sinner with a 5:7,6:3,6:3 victory over Karen Khachanow (RUS).
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Struff delivers fight
After two clear fight victories before, Alcaraz will have to fight hard in his third appearance after the elbow injury. And in a new edition of Madrid-Final 2023, which also went over three sets.
This time it was an even closer affair as Struff won the second set tiebreak 7-5. After that, the German was hopelessly behind at 3:5 and 0:40, but after defending four match points he managed the break and finally got back to the tiebreak. There, the 34-year-old turned a 0:3 into a 4:3, but that was his last point in the match.
Alcaraz can no longer miss match point number five. The 20-year-old is celebrating his 14th consecutive match victory in Madrid, which is the world number three triumphs against Struff in the fourth duel for the third time in a row.
Easy game for Rublev
“It was difficult, I struggled with my emotions. I’m very happy that I showed mentality in the end and won,” Alcaraz said in his first reaction on the pitch. His quarter-final opponent Rublew was far less challenged and beat the Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor 6:2,6:4.
Sinner even had to make up a set deficit against Chatschanow, but was then the better player and secured his place in the round of 16 for the first time in Madrid. The South Tyrolean is the only player on the tour this season in total Masters-1000-Events reached the quarterfinals.
His opponent there has just been identified. While Daniil Medvedev (RUS-3) lived up to his role as favourite, Alexander Zverev (GER-4) was eliminated. The Olympic champion somewhat surprisingly had to bow to the Argentine Francisco Cerundolo with 3:6,4:6.
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