Ramos and Zapata also win in the second round and face each other
Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz came back this Thursday (6-7(5), 6-2, 6-4) against Italian Fabio Fognini to stay alive in the title defense in Rio de Janeiro, an ATP 500 tournament he participated in the quarterfinals, like Albert Ramos and Bernabé Zapata, who will have a direct Spanish duel because they are in the semifinals.
Alcaraz came up from a bad first set, which he managed to get back on track with two 4-0 balls, mentally and in a match that he will have difficulty getting out of in his second tournament in 2023. Buenos Aires, after overcoming two injuries in over 100 days, had a difficult debut on Brazilian soil and against Fognini he started badly, but he grew.
The Murcian missed a lot, had no rhythm in his legs and did not serve well. After dropping the 4-0, he started missing many first serves, erratic in his game. The Italian wasn’t much either and lost his serve four more times, but in the tie-break he turned a 5-4 situation around and won the set.
Alcaraz returned to the attack in the second and this time completed the script he was looking for earlier, with a 4-0 lead that put him on the way to a third act. Fognini, a classic of this tournament who lost the final to David Ferrer in 2015, had another trump up his sleeve and even lost again in the last set.
The Italian went back to look for his opportunities to cut back with a break (3-1) and won more than one good substitution. All in all, Alcaraz maintained the level that had cost him so much to get an important win. Like last year in the semifinals, the Murcian beat Fognini on his way to the title in Rio, the eighth of his career.
In the quarterfinals, the pupil of Juan Carlos Ferrero will compete against the winner of the Serbian cross between Laslo Djere and Dusan Lajovic. Alcaraz, the first seed, will be joined by compatriots Zapata and Ramos, after once again defeating Argentine Francisco Cerúndolo (6-1, 4-6, 6-1) and Colombian Daniel Galán (6-2, 6-4) defeated. Thursday.
The Valencian showed his great moment for one of his victims last week in the tournament in Buenos Aires, where he reached a ‘semi-final’ that he will seek in Brazil against Ramos. The Catalan aspires to that confidence at the start of the season, but in the win against Galán without discussion, he showed that he was not far from a good version.
Meanwhile, the second round was the last game for Spaniard Pedro Martínez, who lost (6-2, 6-2) to Chilean Nicolás Jarry in a match where the Valencian lost the first game of both sets and was not close to winning return.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
