Carlos Alcaraz and the “perfect match” to dream of repeating at the Indian Wells Masters 1000

Carlos Alcaraz he needed to get rid of the feeling that he had been in trouble in his debut in Indian Wells 1000 Masters. And boy, did she do it. The current champion got rid of the Canadian in 78 minutes Felix Auger-Aliassimeone of the few players with whom he has a negative record, and was now 2-3 in the clashes between them thanks to a sensational 6-2 and 6-3 in the third round.

“I think I moved well, I played aggressively and with fewer errors. It was almost a perfect match. It was my first day game and the conditions are completely different from those at night. The ball moves through the air faster – it’s totally another tournament,” he described.

The world number two acknowledged he had gone through difficult times in his tournaments in South America, where he also sprained his right ankle in Rio de Janeiro. “After Buenos Aires I didn’t play good tennis. My confidence dropped a bit and every day I struggled during training trying to keep my confidence as high as possible. “I try to be myself every day,” he said.

“In the first match (at Indian Wells) I had some problems in the first set. I didn’t play my tennis, but I found some good moments to start playing a little better and today was a really good match from the beginning to the last ball. So this has helped my confidence and my tennis a lot,” she added.

Now they will face the Hungarians in the round of 16 Fabian Marozsan, who beat him last year at the Masters 1,000 in Rome. “After that defeat I felt really bad. After that match I really wanted a rematch with him,” Alcaraz said of his future rival, who eliminated the Chilean in the second round. Nicholas Jarry and yesterday he beat the Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild for a double 6-2.

The Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated the American Frances Tiafoe with a double 6-3, while the Australian Alex De Minaur surpassed the Kazakh Alexander Bublik by 7-5 and 6-0. Later, Italian Jannik Sinner (3rd) confirmed his enormous gift with a 6-3 and a 6-4 against the German Jan-Lennard Struff.

Francisco Cerúndolo plays in the Argentine dawn against the American Ben Shelton, while Sebastián Báez will face the American Taylor Fritz today after beating the Italian Fabio Fognini 7-5 and 6-3 on his debut.

Among the women, Nadia Podoroska was eliminated yesterday in the third round with a double 6-1 by the Russian Anastasia Potapova. Polish Iga Swiatek, world number one, also advanced to the round of 16.