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

Carlos Alcaraz needed to get rid of the feeling of having been in trouble on his debut in the Masters 1000 de Indian Wells. And boy did she achieve it. The current champion got rid of the Canadian in 78 minutes Happy Auger-Alsoone of the few players with whom he has a negative balance, and now he was 2-3 in the confrontations against each other thanks to a resounding 6-2 and 6-3 in the third round.

“I think I moved well, I played aggressively and with fewer mistakes. 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 that he went 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 went down a bit and I’ve been having trouble during training each day trying to keep my confidence as high as I can. I try to be myself every day,” he argued.

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

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

The Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated the American Frances Tiafoe by a double 6-3, while the Australian Alex De Miñaur surpassed the Kazakh Alexander Bublik by 7-5 and 6-0. Later, the Italian Jannik Sinner (3rd) confirmed his enormous present with a 6-3 and 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 having beaten the Italian Fabio Fognini 7-5 and 6-3 in his debut.

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