Carlos Alcaraz was almost penciled in as the winner in Buenos Aires, but he's not going to win the tournament because Nicolas Jarry beat him in the semi-final.
This was a weird match for the Spaniard because while the fact that he struggled against Jarry isn't hugely shocking, it still left a lot of people surprised. The Chilean played him really tough last year, winning sets in both matches they played.
He's also a really good clay player who has a pretty great serve, which Alcaraz couldn't handle at all in this semifinal match. Jarry also played a really great match, his best match this year, but the 20-year-old helped him.
There are things you can't allow against Jarry, and he allowed plenty of those, continuing his previous struggles from what has not been the most impressive week for Alcaraz.
Too many times, Jarry would get a really good ball he could smash without any issue, and as quick as Alcaraz is, he's not superhuman. He also didn't win rallies when it really mattered.
He broke early to go up 1-0 in the second set but then cut his own momentum short with a bad game. This was a match where Alcaraz couldn't really afford to throw away chances.
He needed to be pretty close to perfect because Jarry was playing really well. Unfortunately, Alcaraz didn't. He didn't play well in the first-set tie-break, losing it 7-2, and then wasted a huge chance to make the match more interesting in the second set.
He would get broken fairly late in the second set, and while he heroically battled in the final game of the match, he simply didn't have enough to really break the Chilean.
Jarry was very good and executed a perfect plan, which worked really well to win the match. The final score was 7-6(2), 6-3 for the Chilean. Alcaraz remains without a title or a final for six months and counting.
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