Carlos Alcaraz was well aware of the difficulty that was waiting for him in the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Masters, but he ultimately managed to beat Hubert Hurkacz.
The Polish player has been sensational this week, and you don't need to dig deep to understand why. For starters, he's been one of the worst players this year in terms of breaking the serve of other players. Most of his sets were won tiebreaks, but that's not been the case since touching down in North America.
The Polish player has been breaking players comfortably in Toronto last week, especially in Cincinnati this week. He ousted both finalists from last year (Borna Coric and Stefanos Tsitsipas), and he didn't have huge problems with the number one player in the first set either.
The opening set saw him jump out to an early lead immediately after breaking Alcaraz in the Spaniard's first service game. The sensational play continued as he maintained his lead comfortably. Most of the damage came from his serve, as he kept Alcaraz away from any chances.
He lost only six points behind his first serve and had 4 aces in the opening set. He did a fair share of other things posting 14 winners and only two unforced errors. Alcaraz wasn't bad with 8 and 2 but he wasn't clinical and that's what he needed to be. He left five break points on the table and that's been a huge problem for him all week.
He's 14 of 49 on break points, and that's just not good enough if you're the number one player in the world. He struggles with it a lot in his career, leaving many chances on the table, which generally proves costly in high-stakes matches like this one.
The second set was pretty much painless for both players. Alcaraz pushed and created break chances but never quite got it done. He was close but needed a bit extra to get over the hump. Down 4-5, Alcaraz faced a match point after missing a forehand. He saved it as Hurkacz sailed a forehand wide.
We ultimately ended up in the tiebreak, and it was Hurkacz who emerged with an early lead because he had to work less to win points. The serve was almost like a cheat code in the tie-break, where every point matters 10x more.
More precisely, Alcaraz struggled to hit through Hurkacz, who was a proper wall in most rallies. Despite holding a mini-break lead, Hurkacz failed to serve out the match though he couldn't do much against the furious onslaught by the Spaniard.
It was a quick turnaround, leaving Hurkacz unable to react to it. Predictably, he started to struggle in the final set of the match. First, his serve went, and then his baseline play went, and that was all Alcaraz needed to turn around the match.
By the time Hurkacz stabilized, he was already down 2-5, and there was no coming back from that. It's been a comeback week for Alcaraz, as he played three sets in all his matches. The final score in this one was 2-6, 7-6(5), 6-3. He now waits to see whether Novak Djokovic will beat Alexander Zverev and set up the dream final in Cincinnati.
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