Shanghai (AFP) – Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, nineteenth in the world, put an end to his defeats against Spaniard Carlos Alcarras II and eliminated him from the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters 1000 Tennis Tournament, by defeating him 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 on Wednesday.
Published on: 10/11/2023 – 14:57
3 minutes
Wednesday’s match was the third confrontation between Alcaras and Dimitrov this season, and the 32-year-old Bulgarian succeeded in regaining his reputation over the young Spaniard who beat him in the third round of the 1000 Madrid Masters and the quarter-finals of the London tournament, as he did last year in the other confrontation between them when he defeated the Bulgarian. In the third round of the Paris Masters Alef tournament.
Thus, Dimitrov (32 years old) ended the journey of the first seed in this tournament at the eighth final in another disappointing result, as the Spaniard is coming from an exit at the hands of Italian Jannik Sinner in the semi-finals of the China Open tournament after his career also ended in the round of four in the Flushing tournament. Meadows by Russian Daniil Medvedev.
The 20-year-old Spaniard was looking for his seventh title this season and to emerge victorious from his first participation in the Shanghai tournament, which returned to the calendar after being absent since 2019 due to the outbreak of the Corona virus, but his journey was stopped by Dimitrov in a match that suffered from the beginning, as he gave up his serve in the fifth game. For the first group, giving the Bulgarian the opportunity to lead 3-2 and then 4-2.
But this year’s Wimbledon champion and Flushing Meadows 2022 champion responded in the tenth game and leveled the score at 5-5 on the Bulgarian’s serve, then won his serve before taking the set on his opponent’s serve 7-5 after 52 minutes.
Alkaras fell behind again in the second set by losing the first service game, which caused him to fall behind 1-3 and then 2-5 after losing his serve again in the seventh game, before Dimitrov decided it on serve 6-2.
Then the Bulgarian also began the third set by winning the third game on the Spaniard’s serve to lead 2-1 and 3-1, and that was enough to take the group to safety and end it 6-4, deciding the confrontation in two hours and 10 minutes.
In his second quarter-final in Shanghai (he reached this round in 2017) and the seventeenth in the 1000-point Masters tournament, in which he won a single title in 2017 in Cincinnati, Dimitrov will meet the Chilean Nicolas Jarry, who reached this round for the first time in these tournaments by defeating the Argentine Diego. Shvartsman 6-3, 5-7, 6-3.
Frenchman Ugo Hombre also reached the same round, and for only the second time in the history of his thousand-point participation in Masters tournaments, by defeating American DJ Wolff with complete ease 6-1, 6-2, to face the winner of the match between the Russian Andrey Rublev, the fifth, and the other American, Tommy Paul, the twelfth.
© 2023 AFP
2023-10-11 12:57:05
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