JAKARTA - World number one Carlos Alcaraz successfully settled his grudge against Tommy Paul, the man who beat him at the Toronto Masters last week.
Faced with Paul in the race for tickets to the quarter-finals of the 2023 Cincinnati Masters, Alcaraz won with a score of 7-6 (8/6), 6-7 (7/0) 6-3, on Friday, August 18, WIB.
Alcaraz squandered three match points before capturing the first set of a series of delays due to the rain that forced tennis players in and out of the field, which eventually ended after more than three hours.
However, the Spaniard lasted to book a quarter-final meeting with Australian Max Tracell who won 6-4, 6-2 over Swiss player Stan Wawrinka.
After the final rainy break, Alcaraz, who took the lead in the third set, completed the last few points and advanced with 40 winners and 61 forced errors.
"I really want to win after what happened against him last week," Alcaraz said, as broadcast by AFP, as reported by Antara, Friday.
Alcaraz advanced to its fifth quarter-final Masters 1000 of the season and 11th overall, raising the winning-loss record in the match to 21-3 in the elite series of the season, and 51-5 overall.
The 20-year-old put pressure on and puts out the best game to tame Paul.
The top seed came from the second set defeat Paul won when he dominated the tiebrek to equalize.
The pause in the rain that made the match go through a stop-start scenario, aka stopping and starting again, frustrated Alcaraz. The players had to warm up again to start the match.
"Starting and stopping is not easy. I handle it well," said Alcaraz.
"I am happy with my level and happy to be in the quarter-finals. I feel my game is getting better," he continued.
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Meanwhile, Alexander Zverev won the fight over third seed Daniil Medvedev 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
Germany's 16th seed, who missed the second half of last season with a serious ankle injury, won an eighth straight Cincinnati game since the 2021 title race.
"Last year was a difficult time. I couldn't walk and couldn't play," said Zverev, the recent Hamburg clay field champion.
"It's these moments that make things so special."
In another match, fourth seed Stefanos Tsitsipas also lost 3-6, 4-6 to Polish Hubert Hurkacz.
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