Carlos Alcaraz downs Musetti at Roland Garros

Carlos Alcaraz is only one match away from possibly facing Novak Djokovic at Roland Garros (French Open) and it comes after he easily navigated a somewhat tricky matchup with Lorenzo Musetti.

The matchup is tricky simply because Musetti is one of the best players in the world on clay and he's proven it more than once. He actually defeated Alcaraz last year in a final on clay which Alcaraz was eager to take revenge for. He actually called it before the match, saying that he would have revenge and he wasn't lying.

Pretty quickly it became apparent that Alcaraz was really playing well and having his day with Musetti not being able to find any solutions. Yes, he won points and games and threatened Alcaraz at times but for the most part, it was the Spaniard who played bully ball on the court. There was an abundance of winners from Alcaraz who is not having as many issues with controlling the tennis balls as he had earlier in the event. He had 40+ winners, almost twice as many as Musetti had in a pretty snappy match.

We only saw them battle for three sets and the score was 6-3 6-2 6-2 which was a more impressive scoreline than probably many anticipated. Musetti simply couldn't exert enough pressure on Alcaraz as his tennis doesn't generally have that much power. He can play with a lot of power but that's not his game as opposed to Alcaraz who is hitting the ball extremely hard in most rallies.

He quite literally overpowered the Italian in most rallies and that's a matchup problem. Musetti wasn't to break up the rhythm of the Spaniard as effectively and that's one way to try and bait as many errors from him. He managed to do that last year but this year's Alcaraz is a better player.