Hubert Hurkacz sails past Aslan Karatsev in Indian Wells

Hubert Hurkacz is through to the BNP Paribas Open quarterfinal with a strong 6-1 6-3 win over Aslan Karatsev avenging his San Diego Open loss to him a week ago.

It's been revenge time for Hubert Hurkacz who was able to get the better off Aslan Karatsev only a week after the Russian did that to him. Hurkacz was great in this match, a lot better than in that match which came in the week following his title run in France with fatigue a prominent factor in this match. Today, the Pole moved around the court better and his baseline shots were very precise which is his signature style.

When he needed to be aggressive he was and when he needed to be a bit more passive he was showing that his game plan ahead of the match was sublime. Karatsev forced a break point in the first game of the match but after that things went downhill rather quickly for the Russian.

Hurkacz was able to save that break with great serving that trend continued through the day. He hit 6 aces with zero doubles faults winning over 70 % of his first serves in the win. Karatsev struggled immensely on his 2nd serve winning only 5 of 19 of those points and that proved too much to overcome. The Russian also saw his flat groundstrokes negated by the slow surface and that was a problem.

As brilliant as his rise was on slower hard courts his one-dimensional game gets him beaten easily by better tennis playres who have a bit of variet. For Hurkacz it's either Medvedev or Dimitrov up next.