Carlos Alcaraz started slowly against Casper Ruud but quickly found his footing and outplayed the Norwegian in two sets at the 2023 China Open in Beijing.
Alcaraz is confidently marching towards yet another final in the semi-final after beating Casper Ruud in Beijing at the ATP 500 event. It's a much-needed run for Alcaraz after the disappointment from the US Open, where Daniil Medvedev beat him.
The Spaniard faced Ruud in their first match since their 2022 US Open final, where he outplayed Ruud. He's dominated this matchup comfortably in the past, and we predicted another easy win for him in our preview, which ultimately came true.
The match opened well for Ruud though as he was up 3-0 after the first three games, which was quite the result. He struggled greatly in his previous match, so even Alcaraz seemed surprised by the level he produced. It didn't rattle the Spaniard who kept applying heavy pressure, and the momentum started to shift.
Things quickly turned after that as the Spaniard played himself into a rhythm and then outplayed Ruud. He was aggressive, posting 18 winners in the opening set, though he also had 15 unforced errors. Ruud tried to keep up but failed with only two winners and 12 unforced errors.
Alcaraz surprisingly served really well in this match, which made all the difference as Ruud never saw a chance again after breaking early. The second set followed a similar pattern, with Alcaraz again serving well and hitting his winners.
The Norwegian played a bit better in this one and kept it kind of close, but he was nowhere near good enough to turn around the match. The final score was 6-4 6-2 as Alcaraz awaits the winner of Jannik Sinner against Grigor Dimitrov. Perhaps we'll see another big match between Sinner and Alcaraz, which is one of the most recent great rivalries that emerged in tennis.
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