Carlos Alcaraz has secured a landmark achievement by virtue of reaching his first Australian Open quarterfinal.
Having missed last year's edition of the Australian Open due to injury, Alcaraz has made up for lost time by playing some of his best tennis in the first week of this year's tournament. The 20-year-old began his campaign with an assured straight-sets win over French veteran Richard Gasquet.
Alcaraz then withstood heavy hitting from Italy's Lorenzo Sonego, where he dropped his first set of the championships but still shone in a dominant four-set win. He benefitted from a retirement win over Shang Juncheng in the third round, where he played a younger opponent for the first time on the pro tour.
His first major test came in the fourth round, where he faced former Next Gen star Miomir Kecmanovic. Alcaraz needed a third-set tiebreak to defeat the Serb in Miami in 2022. But despite the first two sets being closely contested, the Spaniard ran away with the third, winning 6-0.
Alcaraz has previously played the Australian Open twice, losing in the second round in 2021 and most recently in the third round in 2022. But his run at this year's tournament is his best achievement at Melbourne Park.
Having entered the tournament as one of the favorites, Alcaraz has now reached the quarterfinals at all four Grand Slams. He is the youngest man to do so since Novak Djokovic back in 2008.
Remarkably, when the Serbian legend achieved this feat for the first time, he won the Australian Open that year, beating Roger Federer in the semifinals and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final.
Alcaraz still has work to do, having booked a quarterfinal meeting against Germany's Alexander Zverev in a rematch of their US Open encounter. The Murcia has laready captured two Grand Slams (Wimbledon & US Open) in hs young career and s the first man born after 1990 to win multple majors.
The Australian Open and Roland Garros remain the two major tournaments he has not yet gotten his hands on. But that will most likely change in the not-too-distant future,
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