Carlos Alcaraz is having a brilliant run in Milan at the Next-Gen ATP Finals where he scored his 3rd win in his 3rd match to confirm his place in the semifinals.
The Spaniard took on Juan Manuel Cerundolo who played most of his matches in 2021 on clay and whose level on hard courts is not good. The Argentinian played valiantly in the first two matches but lost both. Today was not much different as he was overpowered from the start by Alcaraz and his huge groundstrokes game.
The Spaniard came out furious blazing forehands and backhands across the court and Cerundolo had no idea what to do with them. The first set was ended in just 16 minutes with a mini-bagel of 4-0 for Alcaraz. The 2nd set was not much better by Cerundolo who once again found himself with an early deficit. The forehand of Alcaraz was something he did not know how to control.
4-1 was the score in the 2nd set after which we had an interesting 3rd set. Most of the damage Alcaraz did happed on the Argentinians 2nd serve where he attacked the weaker serve. The Spaniard also committed quite a few errors which resulted in six break chances for Cerundolo but each one was saved by Alcaraz. That was until the 3rd set where Cerundolo had 5 and he used the final one to close out the set 4-2.
Alcaraz closed out the match in a 4th set tiebreak where he proved a little bit better than Cerunolo. The Argentinian played a lot more aggressively than before but in the end, he was not precise enough when he needed to be.