The Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, top favorite for the title, showed some fluctuations in his game but his category was enough to settle today in one of the semifinals of the Argentina Open, after beating the Serbian Dusan Lajovic 6-4 and 6-2.
Alcaraz, second in the ATP world ranking behind Serbian Novak Djokovic, used one hour and 33 minutes to break Lajovic’s resistance (90) before almost 5,000 people who filled the center court of the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club.
The 19-year-old from Murcia achieved his second consecutive victory in Buenos Aires, since on Wednesday he had beaten another Serb, Laslo Djere (57), and will play tomorrow in the semifinals against the Argentine Francisco Cerúndolo (30) or his compatriot Bernabé Zapata Miralles (74).
¡¡LUJAZO DE ALCARAZ AND POINT OF LAJOVIC! ?
Great match at Guillermo Vilas and the number 2 in the world brings out a sheet of all his class. #ArgentinaOpen pic.twitter.com/Y9nkX5MRcK
— TyC Sports (@TyCSports) February 18, 2023
Cerúndolo and Zapata Miralles closed the fifth day of the Buenos Aires ATP in the last game of the quarterfinals.
The Murcian, applauded by the public since he stepped onto the center court, started the game at full speed, without giving the Serb any type of options, thus quickly taking an appreciable 3-0 lead with a service break at minute 2 -0.
However, the Balkan, an old “fox” of the circuit with a thousand games under his belt at 32, took advantage of a couple of oversights by the Spanish and came up 3-2 after taking two points in a row.
The public, totally inclined to the “wonder child” who took over the number one in the world last year (he only lost it in January at the hands of the Serbian Djokovic), and that gave impetus to the Spaniard who is just playing again in Buenos Aires after an injury that kept him inactive for almost four months.
Alcaraz took the initial set 6-4 and led the way to victory, since in the second quarter he took a 3-0 and 4-1 lead, with forehand “winners” planted two meters behind the base line, something almost impossible for the rest of the tennis players.
The Spaniard, champion last year of the US Open, for now his only Grand Slam title, defined the match 6-2 and managed to settle among the four that will go this Saturday in search of the final of the 23rd edition of the Argentina Open.
