Carlos Alcaraz scored his best career win on Spanish soil Friday at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. After cruising past countryman Jaume Munar earlier in the day, the 18-year-old overcame a comeback charge from top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas to reach his fourth semi-final of the season with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 victory.

Alcaraz looked on course for a relatively routine victory after going up by a set and a double break, but needed to regroup after Tsitsipas dominated the close of the middle stanza. He did that and more as he jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the decider, letting out his biggest roar of the match as he scored a momentum-shifting break to open the set.

“Probably my biggest win on clay court. It was unbelievable,” said Alcaraz, who will crack the Top 10 of the ATP Rankings for the first time on Monday. “Unbelievable game that I played, unbelievable atmosphere that I lived today on court. It was unbelievable everything. The atmosphere here, the crowd, the level that I played, the level of the match. It was incredible.”

Each of the three ATP Head2Head matchups in this blossoming rivalry have been thrillers of supreme quality, with Alcaraz edging the Greek on all three occasions. 

In their first clay-court meeting, both men were eager to attack on Pista Rafa Nadal. Both backed up strong serving with vicious ground strokes as they battled to 4-all in the opening set without a sniff of a break chance. But Alcaraz made his move in the ninth game with a familiar tactic: After heavy hitting brought up three break points at 0/40, a clever drop shot left Tsitsipas stranded.

Alcaraz won 12 of the last 13 points in the stanza. It ended with a contentious moment, as a frustrated Tsitsipas unloaded on a forehand passing shot that missed badly but forced his opponent to duck at the net. Alcaraz stared down Tsitsipas as the Spanish crowd whistled their disapproval, while the Greek walked to his chair, unmoved.

It seemed Alcaraz would have the final say as he rode a wave of winners to a double break lead in the second. But after he broke at love for 4-1, Tsitsipas gradually worked his way back into the match. Finding joy in longer rallies both on serve and return, Tsitsipas reeled off four straight games to get back on serve. As he raised his level, Alcaraz’s dipped. The trend continued in the 12th game of the set, when an Alcaraz error handed Tsitsipas parity.

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Alcaraz left the court for a comfort break prior to the third set, and returned with a fresh focus. A jumping fist pump punctuated his break of serve to open the decider as he played to the the home support.

“I went to the bathroom just to turn off my mind, just trying to change what I played at the end of the second set, just to be focussed on the third set,” he explained. “Forget everything in the match and just give 100 per cent in the third set.”

Tsitsipas left the court himself after falling behind 0-3, but was assessed two separate point penalties for the mid-set break and a time violation after a spirited discussion with the chair umpire.

Down 0-4, Tsitsipas summoned one last surge to create two break points at 1-4, but was foiled by the defense of Alcaraz. The Spaniard followed some lightning-fast retrieving with a bevy of backhand winners to move ahead 5-1, then served out the match to love before a respectful post-match handshake.

Alcaraz, who will next face 10th seed Alex de Minaur in Saturday’s semis, is seeking a third trophy of the 2022 season and a second in April following his maiden ATP Masters 1000 triumph in Miami.

“I think I beat the favourite,” he said of his win over the World No. 5. “I’m playing an incredible level. And I think that I’m ready to get the title.”

When Alcaraz officially enters the Top 10 on Monday, he will do so at the same age, on the same date and following the same tournament as Rafael Nadal in 2005.

Tsitsipas, who won his second straight Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters title last week, was aiming to return to the Barcelona final for a second straight year.

Pablo Carreno Busta and Diego Schwartzman produced inspired comebacks Friday at Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell to set up a semi-final showdown. Both men worked double duty at the ATP 500 event after a Thursday rainout, making their battling efforts all the more impressive.

Carreno Busta saved three match points in the second set against Casper Ruud and then overcame an early break in the decider to survive 4-6, 7-6(8), 6-3, after three hours.

The Spanish eighth seed improves to 5-1 on the European clay swing after a third-round run in Monte Carlo, and ends an impressive streak for his opponent: Ruud had won the last 51 clay-court matches in which he won the opening set.

“I’m so, so happy for this victory,” said the 30-year-old from Gijon, who beat Lorenzo Sonego in another three-setter to start his day. “It was very emotional today playing in front of my people, in my home. I was a set down after playing three hours this morning, so it’s very, very tough to come back.

“Thanks to this crowd, because it was unbelievable to play here again in Barcelona, here in the semi-finals. I cannot be more happy.”

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Ruud’s three match points came with Carreno Busta serving at 4-5 in the second. But PCB fought through a four-deuce game, then took the tie-break on his sixth set point after leading 6/3. Ruud won eight straight points to take an early 2-1 lead in the final set, before the Spaniard won four straight games.

Carreno Busta, who saved 12 of 14 break points in the match, saved three apiece in each of his final two service games, including an escape from 0/40 as he served out the match.

After spending nearly six hours on court, he can now look forward to a fourth ATP Head2Head meeting against sixth seed Schwartzman.

“It’s a really great opponent in the semi-finals,” Carreno Busta said. “We played last year in the quarter-finals, three sets… dramatic at the end. So I hope to recover as much as I can after playing six hours today and try to be ready for tomorrow.”

The Spaniard holds a 2-1 edge over Schwartzman, including a 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 win in their most recent meeting in the Barcelona quarter-final.

Schwartzman did not live quite as dangerously on Friday against Felix Auger-Aliassime, as he did not drop serve in the final two sets to claim a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory. The Argentine spent just over four hours on court Friday, topping Lorenzo Musetti, 6-4, 7-5, to open the day.

He earned his ATP Tour-leading 14th and 15th clay wins of the season to reach his fifth tour-level quarter-final on the year — all on his favoured surface. Schwartzman is seeking his first title of 2022 after runs to the final in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.

Top seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic moved within one win of securing a first title since the Tokyo Olympics in July with a 7-6(3), 6-3 win over Hugo Nys and Jan Zielinski at the Serbia Open in Belgrade.

The Croatian pairing, which ended 2021 as the No. 1 doubles team in the ATP Rankings after picking up nine tour-level titles last year, has struggled for its best form this season. Two breaks of serve in the semi-final of the ATP 250 event on Friday were enough for them to reach their second championship match of the year, however, as they continued a strong showing on debut in Belgrade.

Mektic and Pavic will face Ariel Behar and Gonzalo Escobar in Saturday’s championship match after the Uruguayan-Ecuadorian team ousted Tomislav Brkic and Nikola Cacic 6-2, 7-6(3). Behar and Escobar, who also reached the final in Belgrade in last year, are chasing a third ATP Tour title together having lifted the trophies in Delray Beach and Marbella in 2021.

At the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies overcame defending champions Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in a rematch of the 2021 final to seal a last-four spot at the ATP 500 event.

Krawietz and Mies are two-time Grand Slam champions on the clay at Roland Garros and the German pairing had to use all their experience on the red dirt to hold off the fourth-seeded Colombians in a 6-4, 7-5 win. Krawietz and Mies saved all 10 break points they faced in a 90-minute victory to level the ATP Head2Head series between the two teams at 1-1 — Cabal and Farah triumphed in the only previous meeting between the teams at the 2019 Nitto ATP Finals.

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Also in Barcelona, Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer continued their strong 2022 with a 6-3, 7-6(4) win over a pair of Top 50 singles stars in Pedro Martinez and Lorenzo Sonego.

Arevalo and Rojer are hunting their third title of the year after back-to-back triumphs on the hard courts in Dallas and Delray Beach in February. The El Salvadorian-Dutch duo proved its clay-court pedigree with a run to the semi-finals at last week’s Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters, and the pair held their nerve on Friday to rally from 0/4 in the second set tie-break by winning seven straight points.

Their semi-final opponents will be Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski, the in-form Dutch-British team chasing a fourth tour-level title of the year. Koolhof and Skupski advanced via walkover from their quarter-final, as did Mexican-Argentine duo Santiago Gonzalez and Andres Molteni.

The swirling Belgrade wind was not enough to halt the charge of Andrey Rublev at the Serbia Open on Friday afternoon.

The second seed produced a stunning display of forehand hitting to overwhelm Taro Daniel and surge to a 6-3, 6-3 victory in the quarter-finals of the ATP 250 event, setting a last-four meeting with Fabio Fognini in the process.

A cagey opening played out in blustery conditions suggested a tight encounter was in store at the Novak Tennis Center, but Rublev upped his level mid-way through the first set to devastating effect. A stream of scorching winners from the World No. 8’s forehand brought him nine of the final 12 games as he secured a 74-minute win to move within two matches of a third title of 2022.

“I was a bit stressed because the weather was really tough,” said Rublev after the match. “The conditions were so windy, the ball was moving a lot, so I needed to slow down, take more care. I felt I was playing well, I felt like I had control of the ball and I couldn’t take that many risks because of the wind.

“But then with time, I started to adapt, to take the moments when there was not much wind and I started to try to play more aggressive. In the end it worked.”

Japanese qualifier Daniel had posted a pair of impressive main-draw wins to reach the quarter-finals, taking out fifth seed Cristian Garin in straight sets before prevailing in a three-set battle with exciting #NextGenATP talent Holger Rune. Daniel was aiming to match his semi-final run in Belgrade from 2021 but the explosive power of his opponent proved too hot to handle for the World No. 104.

The match was finely poised at 3-3 after a tight start before Rublev put his foot on the gas. The World No. 8 showed real intent behind his groundstrokes, particularly off the forehand wing, to break Daniel twice in a row and seal the first set.

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Rublev was pushed the distance by Jiri Lehecka in his opening match in Belgrade and he appeared keen to avoid another long battle against Daniel. He continued to strike his forehand consistently to race to a 4-1 lead in the second set and it was only some stoic resistance from Daniel that kept the second seed to a solitary break.

Rublev served out to love for a comfortable win as he extended his ATP Head2Head record over Daniel to 2-0. The 24-year-old dropped just 10 points on serve in the match, according to Infosys ATP Stats, an indication of his dominance in the quarter-final encounter.

With the win, Rublev moves to a 21-5 record for the 2022 season. Only Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters champion Stefanos Tsitsipas has won more matches this year. Despite that strong record, he is taking nothing for granted ahead of his meeting with sixth seed Fognini on Saturday.

“It’s going to be tough,” said Rublev of the Fognini clash. “Fabi, he’s super talented, he can play amazing and it’s going to be a tough match with a lot of long rallies, so I just need to do my best and we will see what happens.”

Fognini also had to overcome the weather when he moved past Germany’s Oscar Otte with a 7-5, 6-4 win earlier on Friday.

World No. 67 Otte made a strong start to his maiden ATP Tour quarter-final, breaking early to surge to a 5-2 lead over the showstopping Italian, but he could not maintain the momentum as he struggled to cope with the high winds blowing across the centre court at the Novak Tennis Center.

Fognini dug deep to reel off five games in a row to snatch the first set as the conditions posed problems for both players. The Italian kept his cool even when he was behind to ensure the pressure of the occasion told on his opponent, who broke into the Top 100 for the first time in January.

Two breaks in the second set were enough to secure the match for No. 62-ranked Fognini. He never reached his free-flowing best in his first tour-level meeting with Otte, but the variety in the Italian’s game was enough to give him the edge over an opponent who struggled with his serve in the blustery conditions.

Fognini will hope to find his best level when he takes on Rublev in his second semi-final of the season. Eight of the Italian’s nine ATP Tour titles have come on clay, the biggest of which was his 2019 triumph at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. He holds a 5-4 ATP Head2Head series lead over Rublev, but the second seed has won the pair’s past three encounters.

In the other of Saturday’s semi-finals in Belgrade, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic will aim to keep his bid for a third title at the ATP 250 event alive when he takes on third seed Karen Khachanov.

#NextGenATP Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz earned his 20th tour-level win of the season Friday at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, overcoming countryman Jaume Munar 6-3, 6-3 to set a potential quarter-final clash with Stefanos Tsitsipas.

Last year, it took the 18-year-old until the US Open in September to hit the 20-win landmark. However the fifth seed is a different beast now, with his 71-minute victory over Munar moving him into his fourth quarter-final of a standout 2022 campaign.

Alcaraz produced a physical and powerful performance against the wild card, stepping inside the baseline to attack Munar’s second serve as he moved up the court throughout to dictate.

The teenager fired 13 winners in the first set and demonstrated great feel as he used the drop shot to great effect to improve to 2-1 in his ATP Head2Head series against Munar, with all three meetings coming on clay.

“It is amazing to play here,” Alcaraz said in his on-court interview. “It is even more special when I win. I think I am playing at a good level and I love playing in front of the Spanish crowd. I am now focused on the next round. My energy levels are at 100 per cent. I will give 100 per cent against Grigor or Tsitsipas.”

The 2021 Intesa Sanpaolo Next Gen ATP Finals titlist was outside the Top 100 in the ATP Rankings when he lost in the first round on his Barcelona debut last season. Playing at a career-high No. 11 this week, Alcaraz is bidding to win his third tour-level trophy of the year in front of his home support in Spain.

The 18-year-old became the youngest ATP 500 champion when he triumphed in Rio de Janeiro in February, before he captured his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title in Miami earlier this month.

In other action, Greek Tsitsipas takes on former World No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov in the third round, with the winner meeting Alcaraz later on Friday. The World No. 5, who eliminated Ilya Ivashka in his opening match, arrived in Barcelona off the back of retaining his Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters title last week. Alcaraz leads Tsitsipas 2-0 in their ATP Head2Head series, while the Spaniard has never faced Dimitrov.

Alex de Minaur also advanced into the last eight after South African Lloyd Harris was forced to retire. The Australian was leading 6-0 in 20 minutes when the match was halted. De Minaur will next meet World No. 10 Cameron Norrie or Hungarian Marton Fucsovics.

Second seed Casper Ruud reached his third ATP Tour quarter-final of the season Friday, moving past Finn Emil Ruusuvuori 6-2, 6-2 at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell.

The Norwegian has produced some of his best tennis on clay and once again looked comfortable on the surface, pulling the World No. 73 around with his consistent and heavy groundstrokes to advance after 76 minutes.

The 23-year-old, who reached the second round in his only other Barcelona appearance in 2017, is now three wins away from capturing his eighth tour-level crown and seventh on clay. Ruud triumphed on the red dirt in Buenos Aires in February and is 7-1 on the surface in 2022.

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The World No. 7 will return to court later on Friday to play Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta or Italian Lorenzo Sonego in the last eight after rain delayed play earlier this week leading to a packed Day 5 schedule at the ATP 500 event.

Ruud now leads Ruusuvuori 2-0 in their ATP Head2Head series. Last month, the 2021 Nitto ATP Finals semi-finalist reached his maiden ATP Masters 1000 championship match at the Miami Open presented by Itau, falling to #NextGenATP Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets.