Carlos Alcaraz continued his 2023 Shanghai Masters campaign, but it took some spectacular tennis to overcome Daniel Evans.
Alcaraz found some of his best tennis this week in Shanghai impressive more so than in Beijing last week. His run last week ended in the semi-final where he was beaten by Jannik Sinner, who ended up going all the way. In Shanghai, Alcaraz has looked even better, and he certainly brought his best against Evans.
Even so, the Spaniard struggled greatly against Evans, who was playing an amazing match himself. Alcaraz recognized the effort from Evans praising him after their battle and just explaining how the match unfolded from his point of view.
It was a really tough match. As I said it was one of the toughest matches I played so far outside the Grand Slams. Every time that I face Daniel it's a tricky match. I have to give my best if I want to beat him. So it's been a really tough match.
I think both of us played a high quality of tennis. I'm really happy to get through and of course really happy with the level that I played today.
Alcaraz hopes to continue his good run in Shanghai, with Grigor Dimitrov being the next challenge. Considering how well he's playing and how well the conditions suit him in Shanghai, it's not impossible to imagine him going all the way.
He might want to do that for a few reasons, one of which is the battle for number one, as he hopes to finish the year as the top-ranked player. He spoke about his desire to get it done, but he needs to go all the way, and he's a few matches away from that, and others are eyeing to do the same thing.