For the second year in a row, Tommy Paul creates a surprising upset at the Canadian Open by beating Carlos Alcaraz.
Alcaraz and Paul have a minor tradition of playing at the Canadian Open. They played last year, and it was a huge win for Paul who prevailed in three sets. We saw three sets again and once more it was Tommy Paul who had the last laugh.
Paul is a tough matchup for Alcaraz simply because he probably plays even more aggressively than Alcaraz does. When it comes to tennis, Paul has a very simple mantra - hit it and hit it hard. He did plenty of that in the opening set, taking Alcaraz by surprise. It was 2-0 for the American after two games and he never lost that advantage.
Paul played a fairly balanced set with 8 winners and only 2 unforced errors while Alcaraz had a nightmare serving performance committing four double faults. He also had seven unforced errors- a bit too many to win the set.
The second set was much better, but even so, it was only late that he managed to break the defence of Paul. The American did really well to navigate a set where he couldn't hit any serves at all. Despite all of his efforts, he ultimately faltered towards the end as Alcaraz pushed past with 13 winners in that one.
The final set was an interesting one as we saw a pretty good level from both. Paul pushed quite a bit early and eventually got the better of Alcaraz by jumping out to a 5-2 lead. From there the American finished off yet another upset, maybe an even bigger one than last year.
The final score was 6-3 4-6 6-3 as he posted an impressive stat line of 25 winners and only 8 unforced errors. He will face either Jannik Sinner or Gael Monfils in the next round.
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