He was ranked second in the world in his best days, while the Croatian, ranked 20 in the world, pressed him to provide remarkable levels on his birthday.
This is the fourth Masters final reached by the former world number one young player, and he reached it after losing an orphan group in the tournament to Finnish Emil Rossofori.
Alcaras, who was absent from the Australian Open at the beginning of the year due to injury, and who launched his season in February, is looking for his fourth title in 2023 after Buenos Aires, Indian Wells and Barcelona.
This is his 18th victory this season in 19 matches on dirt land, which is a good indication three weeks before the start of the Roland Garros tournament.
And if he retains his title in Madrid, he will need to play a single match in Rome next week, to regain first place in the world rankings from veteran Serbian Novak Djokovic.
“The truth is, it’s unbelievable that I’m 20 years old with you. Every year I celebrate my birthday here,” the rising star said quickly after winning.
He continued, “I turned eighteen against Rafa (his compatriot Nadal), nineteen when I played a great match against Nuri (British Cameron), and twenty here and I reach the final, every year is special.”
He broke his opponent’s serve and advanced 3-2 in the first set, before reaching safety. In the second, the US champion (Flushing Meadows) broke serve again and advanced 2-1. After Coric responded quickly, Alcaras regained the lead 3-2 on his way to settling the match with another break.
He explained the circumstances of his match, “The truth is that Coric is a strong player, and you can see that from the match, but especially at the beginning of the first set.”
He added, “The result was 2-2 after about 40 minutes, very long exchanges, high power.”
He revealed that he regained some of the internal incentives that he used in the Flushing Meadows Championship last year before his remarkable coronation, “At some point, I repeated what I did in the United States, that I am a bull, and I can do that, and this is what helped me.”
And Alcaras, who last year became the youngest world number one in history, celebrated his victory as the organizers presented him with a big cake on the occasion of his birthday.
Later, the German Jan-Lennard Struff (ranked 65 in the world), one of the lucky losers in the qualifiers, will play with Aslan Karatsev (121) on the second final ticket, noting that the Russian had knocked him out of the qualifiers 6-4, 6-2.
And in the women’s tournament, in one of the thousand tournaments, the Polish world number one, Iga Chevontec, will play Saturday with the second Belarusian, Arina Sabalenka, in a summit match.
2023-05-05 16:22:09
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