Alcaraz renews his love in Argentina and places first in the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires: all his class and a bit of suffering to overcome Ugo Carabelli

Upon his return to Buenos Aires after a year and his return to clay, which in 2023 saw him defeated only three times in 28 matches, Carlos Alcaraz renewed his love affair with the Buenos Aires public in his presentation at ‘ATP 250 of Buenos Aires .Aires. Even though the audience vibrated with Camilo Ugo Carabelli’s effort and tennis, the Spaniard left amidst applause, smiles and with the certainty that in the tournament in which he will try to defend his title he will have a very, very good time.

Murcian’s debut took place with a 6-2, 7-5 victory and there was no room for surprises or, rather, for the hard blow that the elimination of the first favorite would have entailed. But beyond the fact that the victory was not at risk, it remains to underline the excellent performance of Ugo Carabelli who, in his second match against a top ten player – lost against the Canadian Felix Auger Aliassime, then ninth in the world, at Roland Garros 2022-, has shown the aptitude to sooner or later enter among the 100 best tennis players in the world.

What was the difference? Ugo Carabelli underlined this in the press conference when he said that “Alcaraz has crack things”. And where is the point that marks the star status of the former world number 1? On your journey, for example. Inverted or on the run, it’s a shot that hurts anyone. And the loser, who was able to enjoy a dream night in Buenos Aires, suffered it.

After an irregular start in which they broke twice, Alcaraz established the logical difference and with the power of his shots he overwhelmed his opponent who was never able to hold serve in the first set.

In the second half the irregularity continues: Ugo Carabelli leads 2-0, but Alcaraz immediately finishes 5-2. He didn’t finish with the serve at 5-3 and even wasted a match point at 5-4 with the serve of his rival who, for his part, had three break points in the following game.

But when the winner was 6-5, he did not forgive and ended up celebrating a victory for his team that will allow him this Friday, at the opening of the night session, not before 6.30 pm, to seek another step forward in the tournament against the Italian Andrea Vavassori. Ultimately it will be another chapter in a love story that began 12 months ago.

Triumph of Federico Coria

Federico Coria landed one of the great blows this Thursday at the ATP in Buenos Aires. The 106th in the world and younger brother of the legendary Magician, beat the British Cameron Norrie 6-2, 4-6 and 6-3 and advanced to the quarter-finals of the tournament with the Spanish Alcaraz the great favourite.

It took Fefo two hours and 20 minutes to eliminate Norrie, who was in the top ten and is now 20th in the world. She won the first set, then gave up the second, but showed authority in the final chapter to remove one of her final finalists from the competition.

It is the fourth victory over a top 20 in his career for Coria, who enters the quarter-finals of the tournament played at Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis for the second time. Previously, he had won twice against the Spaniard Pablo Carreño Busta (Lyon 2022) and the Chilean Cristian Garín (Bastad 2021 and Rio 2022). It’s a great February for Fefo too, given that last week he was a semi-finalist at the ATP in Córdoba.

“It was the best victory of my career. Beating Cameron who was in the Top 10 not so long ago and doing it here in Buenos Aires deserves me to take it into consideration,” said Coria, who couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. his face, in the press conference. and now he awaits the winner of the duel between Sebastián Báez and Luciano Darderi, who close the day in Palermo.