Carlos Alcaraz will face Daniel Evans at the 2023 Shanghai Masters in a match that promises to be a very interesting one.
Alcaraz has been playing spectacular tennis since touching down in China, and yet it's yielded nothing more than a semi-final last week in Beijing. He simply ran into a very inspired Jannik Sinner, who played even better than him.
Dan Evans has been in China for a while, but he only got a win relatively recently. Chengdu was a loss to Roman Safiullin, a player who went to the final that week. Beijing was a loss to Jannik Sinner, the eventual champion, and now he's going to face Carlos Alcaraz after advancing past Mikhail Kukushkin.
If Alcaraz wins, does that mean he'll go to the final? We don't know, but we do know that he needs to beat Evans to get there.
Head-to-head:
So far, that hasn't been the problem for the Spaniard, who leads Evans 3-0 in matches on the ATP Tour. Two of those happened this year, one on clay and one on hard courts and neither was a huge problem for Alcaraz. He did drop a set to Evans in New York, but Evans is not really playing on that level right now. Even so, he could find it and make it complicated for Alcaraz.
Prediction:
Evans is incredible when he needs to put his opponent in a tricky spot, and that's going to be his method against Alcaraz as well. The Spaniard is very resistant to that has suited him well so far, but doing so in Shanghai will be tough.
The court might not play as fast as it did in years previous, but Alcaraz has enough power to overcome that. Ultimately I think he will, which is why his side is the right one to take.
Prediction: Carlos Alcaraz to win in two sets.
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