PARIS (Reuters) – Carlos Alcaraz pummelled Karen Khachanov into submission in a 6-1 6-4 6-4 victory on Sunday to reach the French Open quarter-finals and stretch his successful run to 14 matches.
The 19-year-old, who has taken the tennis world by storm this yr, grew to become the youngest participant in 29 years to reach two Grand Slam quarter-finals after additionally making the U.S. Open final eight.
“It has been an amazing match from my facet. I performed rather well from the start till the tip of the match,” he mentioned. “I knew I had to be actually targeted from the start.”
He wanted simply 29 minutes to storm by means of the primary set together with his particular mixture of uncooked energy, punishing forehands and deft drop photographs that made his 26-year-old opponent look outdated.
Khachanov, the world quantity 25 and a quarter-finalist in Paris in 2019, managed to maintain serve early within the second set however the Spaniard broke him at 3-3, and by no means appeared again.
The pair traded breaks halfway by means of the third set on a cold and overcast night within the French capital however it was Alcaraz who pulled forward with one more break after an eye-popping ‘tweener’ lob over the tall Russian.
He wobbled a bit on the finish, losing 5 match factors on Khachanov’s serve, however that solely delayed the inevitable by one sport, as he sealed victory on his serve minutes later.
World quantity six Alcaraz, who now has a 19-1 win-loss file on clay this season after successful back-to-back titles in Barcelona and Madrid in April and May, will subsequent face third seed Alexander Zverev.
Should the celebrities align for Alcaraz, he may finally tackle both world primary and defending champion Novak Djokovic or 13-time Roland Garros winner Rafael Nadal within the final 4.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Toby Davis)
