For a second consecutive week, Carlos Alcaraz came back from a set down to defeat Hubert Hurkacz. The win sends Alcaraz to his first hard-court final of the summer.
Carlos Alcaraz posted another come-from-behind victory against Hurbert Hurkacz on Saturday afternoon to secure his spot in the Western & Southern Open final. The Spaniard squeezed out a 2-6 7-6(4), 6-3 victory, staving off a match point in the second set in the process.
For a set and a half, it looked as if Hurkacz was about to get his first career win over his budding rival. The Polish world No. 20 absolutely smothered Alcaraz in the first set, as the top seed was broken twice and it seemed even more lopsided than the score suggests. Hurkacz played the big points far better than his opponent and he carried that momentum to the second set.
Alcaraz’s quality of play improved incrementally as the second set progressed. He earned a trio of break points against the underdog at 1-1 but was unable to convert. There would be no breaks of serve in the set, but Hurkacz earned a match point with Alcaraz serving at 4-5. The Wimbledon champion quickly erased it and eventually forced a tiebreaker. It was there that the first cracks in Hurkacz’s game started to show. He went up an early mini-break and sprinted out to a 4-1 lead, but Alcaraz reeled off five points in a row to level the match at a set apiece.
The third set was all the Spaniard. Hurkacz missed shots he was making easily in the first two sets; Alcaraz broke early for 3-1 and never relinquished the lead.
“It was really, really tough,” the world No. 1 assured. “I knew before the match that playing against Hubi is always tough. But we fought until the last ball. That match [point] down, I was thinking about try to save [it], keep it up, in that moment just to stay there all the time. I knew that I was going to have my chances if I saved that. I did; I took the opportunity. I’m really, really happy to get the win today.”
Alcaraz awaits the winner of the evening semifinal between Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev.
nice one, Carlos