“Carlos Alcaraz defends crown at Mutua Madrid Open against Jan-Lennard Struff”

P14 days after Carlos Alcaraz defended his title at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, The Murcian tennis player chooses this Sunday to defend the crown of the Mutua Madrid Open.

Alcaraz, who won the God title against a top 5 player like Stefanos Tsitsipas, will be measured this afternoon on the Manolo Santana track, starting at 6:30 p.m., against Jan-Lennard Struff.

The German, currently ranked 65th in the ranking, and who will have his best professional ranking tomorrow at 33, He was forced to play the previous phase of the Madrid Masters 1000.

He lost in the last round to the Russian Aslan Karatsev, precisely his victim in the semifinals last Friday.

the south korean Soonwoo Kwon He was the last player capable of being crowned in a competition from the qualifying phase. He won in Adelaide, in January, after ending the resistance of Roberto Bautista.

There are no precedents for lucky losers in the finals of TMS category tournaments since its creation in 1990.. The Warnstein natural player aspires to release his record of titles after losing the Munich 2021 final with Nikoloz Basilashvili as executioner.

There was never a first Masters 1000 champion as long-lived as Struff. Yesterday was an active rest day for Alcaraz, who decided not to exercise on clay. He did recovery work alongside his physiotherapist Juanjo Moreno.

He has enough filming with the 10 games played on Spanish soil since April 18, the date on which he debuted at God with Nuno Borges.

Juan Carlos Ferrero’s pupil will play to continue making history and fight to become the second player capable of revalidating the Madrid crown since the first edition in 2002. It was achieved by his idolized Rafael Nadal, consecutive winner in 2013 and 2014.

Despite the fact that in the palmars appear a total of eight number ones, only Nadal repeated a year later. David Nalbandian and Alexander Zverev are the only two champions to have their names inscribed on the trophy without having led world tennis.

This reflects the prestige of the contest, that until 2008 it was played on a hard surface indoors and a year later it was transferred to the Magic Box to be a combined men and women.

Carlitos, with nine gimped, can add a tenth that would leave him as the fifteenth most awarded member of the Navy. He will tie with Felix Mantilla and Andrs Gimeno.

Cerco a Djokovic

Very attentive to everything that happens in the capital of Spain is Novak Djokovic, absent due to discomfort in his right elbow and who returns next week in the tournament in Rome.

If Alcaraz wins in Madrid, he will stay five points behind Djokovic in the ATP ranking and it will happen to him at the time of playing the second round on the slopes of the Roman Italic Forum. He will score 10 points.

The Murcian will be the second seed in the table and could only meet the Serbian in a hypothetical final. He will not be able to run into his compatriots Nadal and Pablo Carreo, absent due to injury.

In the same way, the leader of the Navy, in case of winning again at home, he would also lead the 2023 Race, beating Daniil Medvedev by 110 points, whom he would tie for titles (4). I’m still a kid, it’s my second year on the circuit and it’s my fourth final of a Masters 1000″, reflects the Murcian, who aspires to be the earliest to repeat a TMS victory since Nadal achieved it in Monte Carlo and in Rome. , between 2005 and 2006.

Regarding Rafa’s repeated absence, he hopes to meet him again at Roland Garros (May 28 to June 11). “It’s a shame to see Rafa skip the tournaments and the clay tour, which is the most special for him. Health comes first and if he has decided not to go to Rome, I will have seen that he is not ready. I hope to see him at Roland Garros at 100 percent. The world wants to see him at 100 percent,” warns Carlitos.

Struff remembers his only presence in an ATP tournament final in Munich: “There were no fans in the stands due to Covid.” The German beat Alcaraz at Roland Garros and took him to five sets at Wimbledon: “This time we play in Spain“.