CarlosAlcaraz has so many resources that sometimes he can allow himself to slip up, like the one he suffered at the beginning of his quarterfinal match of the ATP 500 in Beijing against CasperRuud.. It was not enough for the Norwegian with the initial expression of a good tactical approach to stop the number two in the world, whose result count brings him closer to the head of the ranking, still occupied by the absent Novak Djokovic, from whom he is now only 580 points apart in the Race to Turin. On his first tour of Asia, which will take him almost immediately to the Shanghai Masters 1000, the Spaniard reached the semifinals by winning 6-4, 6-2, in one hour and 45 minutes, and will play this Tuesday (1:30 p.m. ., Movistar) with Jannik Sinner, who beat Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 3-6 and 6-2. Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev will fight for the other place in Wednesday's final.

Alcaraz has taken care of his calendar, dispensing with the Davis Cup, to arrive in the best conditions for the last stretch of the season. A year ago he was injured in Paris-Bercy and could not compete in the ATP Finals, despite which he concluded 2022 as number 1, a label that had been attached precisely after beating Ruud and winning the first of his two titles in New York. of the Grand Slam.

The two players had not crossed paths since then.. While Alcaraz does not stop growing and has, together with Djokovic and Medvedev, guaranteed a place among the eight best of the course, which will meet in Turin from November 12 to 19, his opponent has had an irregular season, which did not prevent him from placing in the final of Roland Garros. Ruud is tenth in the ATP Race, and will have to improve in the coming events if he wants to compete for the third consecutive time in a tournament where he was a finalist last year.

A deceptive start

The advantage he acquired from the start was quite artificial. He saved five breaking points in a first 15-minute game and then capitalized on his rival's excesses, somewhat overkill.. But Alcaraz did not take long to impose his logic on the scoreboard, which dictates qualities that few opponents can neutralize.. Ruud tried it in different ways, whether it was changing heights successfully and even, as the match progressed, increasing the risks.

But after a round of 16 match that lasted more than three hours against Tomás Martín Etcheverry, he gradually lost the spark at the beginning and saw his future definitively compromised when he gave up his service in the first game of the second set, also after successive alternatives. In his fourth confrontation with Alcaraz, Ruud, 24, collided with the evidence again.

He lacks, at least for the moment, the weapons to defeat the Murcian when he manages to channel a good part of the tennis he has inside, and added his eleventh defeat in as many matches against a man in the top 3. Like Yannik Hanfmann, in the first round , and Lorenzo Musetti, in the round of 16, said goodbye in two sets, subdued by the strength of Alcaraz, who appears unstoppable, as in many moments of this exercise.