Carlos Alcaraz battles through thriller to reach quarterfinals of Tennis Masters 1000 in Madrid

2024-04-30 18:15:12

Carlos Alcaraz reached the quarterfinals of the Tennis Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid after a thriller. The winner of the last two editions defeated the German Jan-Lennard Struff 6:3,6:7(5),7:6(4) on Tuesday after almost three hours of play.

The Russian Andrej Rublew, ranked seventh, is now waiting for the Spaniard, who was seeded number two. Top seed Jannik Sinner also struggled with his 5:7.6:3.6:3 win over Karen Chatschanow (RUS).

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Struff delivers fight

After two confident match wins before, Alcaraz has to fight very hard in his third appearance after his elbow injury. And that in a new edition of the Madrid final in 2023, which also lasted 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 made it back into the tiebreak. There the 34-year-old turned a 0:3 into a 4:3, but that was his last point in the game.

Alcaraz can no longer miss match point number five. The 20-year-old celebrates his 14th match win in a row in Madrid, and 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 really happy that I showed mentality in the end and got the win,” said Alcaraz 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 for a set deficit against Chatschanow, but was then the better player and secured his place in the last eight for the first time in Madrid. The South Tyrolean is the only player on the tour to have reached the quarterfinals in all Masters 1000 events this season.

His opponent there has just been identified. While Daniil Medvedev (RUS-3) lived up to his role as favorite, Alexander Zverev (GER-4) was eliminated. The Olympic champion somewhat surprisingly had to bow to the Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo with 3:6.4:6.

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