Carlos Alcaraz has achieved an incredible new record at the Mutua Madrid Open, in which he is proving his superiority over the competition to reconfirm himself as the champion of the Spanish tournament. Another record that embellishes his ever richer collection
Indeed, the newly 20-year-old Spaniard has become the best player in history to have won the most matches in the first 150 played in the ATP professional tour. An impressive statistic is the new young tennis star, who immediately began to make a difference on the tour.
There are 117 hits achieved by Alcaraz in these first 150 outings, surpassing the previous record of the American John McEnroe (113). The Spanish champion Rafael Nadal (112) remains on the podium, while the record set by the Swede Mats Wilander has dropped to fourth place. Andre Agassi in fifth place with 110 victories.
This stat from @TennisTV š pic.twitter.com/OnxkOrCMzH
ā Reem Abulleil (@ReemAbulleil) May 5, 2023
Alcaraz also wins in Madrid
Alcaraz succeeds in defending the title in Madrid. The Spanish tennis player suffers, but wins against the lucky loser turned finalist Jan-Lennard Struff: victory with the result of 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 . The world number two conquers the fourth ATP Masters 1000 title of his career, after Madrid, Miami and Indian Wells, playing in his fourth final.
The data is clear: the finals of the Masters 1000 Alcaraz are never wrong. Struff’s tactic is clear: on the first, but also on the second if he allows it, it’s an opportunity to go on the serve and volley.
That’s what you see in the first game, but the tactical choice isn’t rewarded for a first game that doesn’t enter and Alcaraz’s answers that don’t allow him to play as the German would like. So we start with the break in favor of Alcaraz.
Maintaining the advantage for the world number two was not easy: more than eight minutes of the game, with Struff who wanted to repudiate the long rally, accelerating a lot and risking a lot. In fact, the counter break arrives in the fourth game, with the aggravating circumstance for Alcaraz which was a turn of service lost to zero.
The world number two and title holder manages to break serve again in the seventh game, not without difficulty. And again not without effort, with the German always taking risks, he goes to serve for the set: here he makes no mistake, going to close by not losing points on the fundamental service shift.
Struff, however, does not want to say enough to the match and at the first useful opportunity in the second set he is not wrong: Alcaraz scores only one point on his first round of service, but gives in to the strength and accelerations of Struff, who wins the break.
An advantage that once again Alcaraz wants to snatch from him, that the German wants to keep at all costs, but that final half-volley that gives Struff the set is a pearl of a great partial played by the one who started as a lucky loser in this scoreboard.
In the third set, he changes the music, with the German not being able to push as before. Or rather, he pushes but now the risks become mistakes. So in the fourth game comes Alcaraz’s break, which instead rises to the next level: the drop shots played at the right time, the balls spinning at very high speed.
That advantage, that break, which gives him the decisive set and the match.