For the second straight day at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, Carlos Alcaraz shook off a stern test from a fellow Spaniard to advance in straight sets at the clay-court ATP 500. After beating Roberto Bautista Agut on Thursday, the 19-year-old edged Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 7-6(5), 6-4 on Friday to return to the semi-finals on home soil.

“It was really tough for me,” Alcaraz assessed. “I started playing pretty well, serving for the first set. I was not able to win [that game]… I was going really fast, a lot of things on my mind. [After the first set] I was talking to myself, positive things, trying to play long rallies, trying to [be there] through the points, trying to feel more comfortable with myself.”

Alcaraz has not lost a set in four Barcelona matches against his countrymen, including a win against Pablo Carreno Busta in last year’s final. He is now 9-1 against Spanish opposition since the start of 2022 and 8-1 overall at the ATP 500 event, his lone defeat coming to Frances Tiafoe in his 2021 debut.

With two more wins, Alcaraz would become Barceiona’s first repeat champion since Rafael Nadal won three straight titles from 2016-18. He will face Daniel Evans or Francisco Cerundolo in Saturday’s semi-finals.

While he did not produce his best tennis consistently in the chilly and windy conditions, Alcaraz managed the big moments well after losing the lead in both sets. While his level ebbed and flowed, he relied on his trusty drop shot at several key points and willed his way to victory at the end of each set.

Davidovich Fokina fought power with power and troubled Alcaraz throughout the two-hour, 10-minute match. He was two points away from winning the opening set on four occasions, but he never saw a set point after letting an early lead slip in the tie-break.

The pair split 22 break points in the match, with Alcaraz converting on four to his opponent’s three. Alcaraz saved six of those break points to hold for 2-1 in the second set and capitalised with a break in the ensuing game, only to see Davidovich Fokina snatch it back with the shot of the match — a wicked drop volley that bounced back onto his side of the net, drawing a smile from Alcaraz.

“The hot shot is from him today,” said Alcaraz, who produced a shot-of-the-tournament contender of his own against Bautista Agut on Thursday. “He played really well, great shots. Probably not only the one hot shot. He made a lot of them, probably more than me. It was a really fun match.”

Alcaraz sealed victory with a break of serve in the match’s final game and will now wait for the result of Barcelona’s Friday nightcap between Evans and Cerundolo to find out his next opponent.

Holger Rune continued his love affair with the BMW Open by American Express on Friday when he moved past Chilean Cristian Garin 6-2, 6-4 to reach the semi-finals in Munich.

The 19-year-old, currently at a career-high No. 7 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, lifted his maiden tour-level title at the ATP 250 event last year and moved to within two wins of matching that feat this week with a dominant display against Garin.

The Dane demonstrated his all-court game in front of the German fans. He hammered his groundstrokes, used the drop shot effectively and closed the net sharply to earn his 19th win of the season after one hour and 31 minutes.

“Today was tricky, especially in the second set,” Rune said. “There were some nerves as you might have seen, but it was good. I am very happy with the win. I have played a lot of matches, so the body is maybe not ideal. But I love this place and I love to play on this court in front of a nice crowd.”

Rune has made a strong start to his clay season, having reached his second ATP Masters 1000 final in Monte-Carlo last week. Rune, who leads Garin 3-0 in their ATP Head2Head series, is seeking his fourth tour-level trophy in Munich.

The second seed now holds a 7-0 record in Munich and will next meet Christopher O’Connell. The Australian upset Alexander Zverev earlier this week and backed that up by defeating #NextGenATP Italian Flavio Cobolli 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3 to advance to his second tour-level semi-final.

Earlier, Dominic Thiem advanced to his second quarter-final of the season when he clawed past eighth-seeded Swiss Marc-Andrea Huesler 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

After play was suspended midway through the second set on Thursday evening, Thiem returned on Friday and came out firing. The former World No. 3 broke Huesler three times across the second and third sets to advance after two hours and 38 minutes.

Thiem was unable to overcome Taylor Fritz in his second match later on Friday, though.

The American produced a dominant performance, moving past the Austrian 6-3, 6-4 to reach the semi-finals. The World No. 10 will meet Botic van de Zandschulp after the Dutchman defeated Marcos Giron 7-6(5), 6-3.

Fritz, who is making his debut in Munich, holds a 25-7 record on the season. He lifted his fifth tour-level trophy in Delray Beach in February before he advanced to the last four in Monte-Carlo last week.

Andrey Rublev maintained his perfect start to the clay-court swing on Friday when he defeated Bosnian wild card Damir Dzumhur 7-5, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals at the Srpska Open.

The second seed lifted his maiden ATP Masters 1000 title in Monte-Carlo last week and has continued to play aggressive, front-foot tennis in Banja Luka.

Rublev, who dispatched Juan Pablo Varillas in his opening match, overcame a tough test from home favourite Dzumhur, who was competing in his first tour-level quarter-final of the year. He railed from 2-5 in the first set, saving one set point at 4-5, before he fended off all four break points he faced in the second set to earn his seventh consecutive win after one hour and 52 minutes.

“We have always had tough battles and today was the same,” Rublev said. “I was losing 2-5 and I was able to come back. It was a tough match. A lot of long games and a lot of long rallies but in the end I was able to win and that is the most important thing.”

With his 20th win of the season, Rublev improved to 5-0 in his ATP Head2Head series against Dzumhur. Seeking his 14th tour-level title and fifth on clay, the World No. 6 will next face Alex Molcan.

The Slovakian Molcan defeated Serbian Laslo Djere 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 to reach his first tour-level semi-final of the season. The 25-year-old is up 16 spots to No. 57 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

A rising teen on the ATP Challenger Tour, Shintaro Mochizuki has occasionally leaned on Japanese icon Kei Nishikori for advice. But Mochizuki’s quest for knowledge doesn’t just come from fellow tennis players.

The 19-year-old looks up to Japanese baseball stars, notably Los Angeles Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani and San Diego Padres’ Yu Darvish. Mochizuki researches their off-field routine and tries to implement pieces of it into his training plan.

“I watch a lot of baseball,” Mochizuki told ATPTour.com. “I watched the World Baseball Classic last month. I watched most of Japan’s games, they have some great players. There are several Japanese players playing in the MLB, so I watch them a lot.

“Especially Shohei Ohtani and Yu Darvish, they’re my favourite. I’ve never met them, but I think they’re super strict with nutrition, fitness, everything they do is amazing. I think that’s why they’re playing at that level. I learn a lot of things from baseball players. Those guys always have a purpose to work, to practise, to go to the gym, to sleep, also their recovery is very important.

“Those are the things that I always want to know about what they do after a game, before a game, and their routine. I try to find them on the internet. If I get a chance, I want to meet them and I want to ask them a lot of questions.”

The last month has been one to remember for Mochizuki. Japan defeated the United States 3-2 to win the World Baseball Classic in Miami and Ohtani was named Most Valuable Player. Nearly three weeks later, #NextGenATP star Mochizuki earned his maiden Challenger title in Barletta, Italy.

Shintaro Mochizuki triumphs at the Barletta Challenger. Credit: Open Citta della Disfida.

Mochizuki became the third Japanese teenager to win a Challenger title, joining Nishikori (Bermuda 2008) and Yoshihito Nishioka (Shanghai 2014). Coached by former World No. 42 Davide Sanguinetti, the Kawasaki native dropped just one set all week at the Barletta Challenger to rise to a career-high No. 216 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

“I didn’t expect it actually,” Mochizuki said. “My best Challenger result was three quarter-finals. It was a surprise to me, I know I could beat those guys but winning a tournament is different. You have to win five, six matches in a row, which is really difficult. I believed I could do it, but after I won, it was a surprise.”

A former junior No. 1, Mochizuki completed a dream run at Wimbledon in 2019, when he became the first Japanese male player in history to win a major boys’ singles title. His reaction to lifting the junior crown at the All England Club was something he considers a ‘pinch-me’ moment.

“Winning Wimbledon juniors was my first year playing Grand Slam juniors, I didn’t know anything about the level,” Mochizuki said. “I didn’t feel anything after I won it, it was a weird feeling. It was awkward like, ‘Am I winning a junior Grand Slam?’ I was already hoping to become a professional player but that made me feel even more like I want to be a great player.”

Among those to congratulate Mochizuki on his biggest career title was former World No. 4 Nishikori, whom he built a relationship with when they shared a training base at IMG Academy for several years.

“I got to know Kei when I moved to Florida at 12 or 13,” Mochizuki said. “He was already like Top 10 when I first met him. I didn’t know anything about professional tennis, so I was like, ‘Maybe I can beat this guy!’ Now I feel like what he’s achieved is incredible, it’s super difficult.

“I don’t want to say that I can’t do it but being Top 5, Top 10 for so many years is unreal. I want to be like that. I want to do as good as he did in the past years. I don’t know if it’s going to happen but I’m going to do whatever I can, work super hard to become like those players.

“When I see Kei, he’s always nice and talks to me. There’s so many things that I don’t know and he has experience, so when there’s something I want to know, when I see him I always ask. He’s always super nice to give me advice.”

Is this the week Stefanos Tsitsipas captures his first title of the season?

The Greek maintained his perfect record against Alex de Minaur on Friday when he overcame the Australian 6-4, 6-2 to reach the semi-finals at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell.

Tsitsipas was in control throughout the one-hour, 21-minute clash at the clay-court ATP 500, taking large cuts at the ball on the forehand to overpower De Minaur and improve to 9-0 in their ATP Head2Head series.

“I would say that my shots were heavy,” Tsitsipas said. “I was able to control most of them and navigate him around the court on both my forehand and backhand. My patience was there. I knew that was the foundation of the match.

“I am satisfied with my return game, especially towards the end. I found myself in a very good position to press early on and look for the forehand and use my backhand when necessary as well.”

With his 19th win of the season, the second seed set a semi-final clash against Italian Lorenzo Musetti. The ninth seed Musetti received a walkover from Jannik Sinner earlier on Friday.

Tsitsipas holds fond memories in Barcelona, having advanced to the championship match in 2018 and 2021. The 24-year-old will rise to fourth in the Pepperstone ATP Live Race To Turin if he lifts his fifth clay-court tour-level trophy this week in Spain.

De Minaur was aiming to reach the semi-finals in Barcelona for the second consecutive year. The 24-year-old is 14-8 on the season, highlighted by his run to the title in Acapulco in February.

Jamie Murray and Michael Venus squeezed into the Srpska Open semi-finals with a 6-4, 4-6, 13-11 win against Colombians Gonzalo Escobar and Diego Hidalgo on Thursday in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

The top seeds saved a match point at 9/10 in the Match Tie-break before clinching victory on their third match point. Each team broke once in the match, with Murray/Venus creating nine break chances to their opponents’ four.

The British-Kiwi pairing will face Andrey Golubev and Denys Molchanov in Friday’s semi-finals after the Kazah-Ukrainian team advanced with a 6-3, 6- win against Andre Goransson and Ben McLachlan on Wednesday.

The second Banja Luka semi-final will see second-seeded Belgians Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen meet Francisco Cabral and Aleksandr Nedovyesov after both pairs scored straight-sets victories on Thursday. Gille/Vliegen beat Serbians Nikola Cacic and Miomir Kecmanovic 7-6(9), 6-4, while Cabral/Nedovyesov upset third-seeded Frenchmen Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul 7-6(5), 6-1.

Glasspool/Heliovaara Score Barcelona Upset

The British-Finnish duo of Lloyd Glasspool and Harri Heliovaara knocked off second seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury 7-6(7), 7-5 on Thursday at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. The winners saved eight of 10 break points in an eventful match and converted on three of eight break chances on return.

Glasspool/Heliovaara will meet Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni in Saturday’s semi-finals after the Argentines’ 6-4, 6-2 win against Rafael Matos and David Vega Hernandez at the ATP 500.

German Sucess In Munich
Two all-German teams advanced to the quarter-finals with Thursday wins at the BMW Open by American Express, setting up a showdown in the last eight.

Top seeds Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz beat countrymen Yannick Hanfmann and Daniel Masur 6-0, 6-3, while Jan-Lennard Struff and Oscar Otte moved past Britons Julian Cash and Henry Patten 6-4, 3-6, 10-5.

Carlos Alcaraz fought off a late charge from countryman Roberto Bautista Agut to notch his second straight-sets victory this week at the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell. The 19-year-old continued his title defence with a 6-3, 7-5 win, looking at home on the Spanish clay in his first tournament since his hard-court run to the Miami semi-finals.

“Today was really tough. The conditions, it wasn’t easy,” Alcaraz said of the heavy winds that led to a combined eight breaks of serve. “Of course I had to adapt my game from the wind. It was really tough. Roberto’s a great player, a really solid player. I had to stay focussed all the time, be there all the time and try to take my chances.”

The victory improved Alcaraz to 9-1 against fellow Spaniards, with his only loss coming to Rafael Nadal in last year’s Indian Wells semis. Playing on the Barcelona centre court named for Nadal, Alcaraz is bidding to become the first repeat champion at the ATP 500 since the Spanish legend reigned from 2016-18.

He will face another Spaniard, 10th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, in Friday’s quarter-finals.

After going behind an early break at 2-3 in the opening set, Alcaraz rattled off six straight games to take command. He hit the shot of the match to bring up his third and final set point of the first set, sliding into a desperate backhand and floating a slice beyond a stunned Bautista Agut, who thought he had the point won with his overhead.

“It was lucky. Honestly I didn’t expect to make that shot,” Alcaraz said of the magic moment. “I just closed my eyes, [swung] the racquet. It was a lot of luck that I made that shot. Something like that is so special.”

Though he was broken twice midway through set two, Alcaraz powered through the finish line by winning the final 11 points from 4-5, 15/15. He wrapped up the win in one hour, 53 minutes after breaking serve on five of 10 chances, with Bautista Agut also doing damage on return with three breaks in seven opportunities.

Bautista Agut was stopped short of his third Barcelona quarter-final (2015, 2018) as Alcaraz denied him his first Top 10 win on clay. At 35, he was the oldest player in the last 16.

Taylor Fritz continued his strong start to the European clay-court season with a debut win on Thursday at the BMW Open by American Express. The American backed up his run to the Monte-Carlo semi-finals with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 victory against Marton Fucsovics to advance to the quarter-finals at the Munich ATP 250.

“First match, I had to get used to the conditions,” Fritz said of his performance. “Everything plays a bit different. It’s obviously very cold. I took some time to feel it out and I feel like I just played better as the match kept going.”

Fritz improved to 29-25 on clay courts with the win, with a 4-1 mark this season. The second seed will seek his 30th career victory on the dirt against either Dominic Thiem or eighth seed Marc-Andrea Huesler on Friday.

After dropping serve twice in the opening set against Fucsovics, Fritz faced just one break point across sets two and three, crucially saving it at 2-2 in the third. He scored his fourth break of the match on his seventh break point late in the decider and served out the victory in the ensuing game, wrapping up the win in just under two hours.

Fritz fired nine aces and won 83 per cent (35/42) of his first-serve points in the victory.

The American, who reached a career-high Pepperstone ATP Ranking of No. 5 in February, entered Munich as the World No. 10. He is seeking his second title of 2023 after his triumph on home soil in Delray Beach.

The Thursday nightcap in Munich between Thiem and Huesler was suspended due to darkness with the Swiss leading 7-5, 3-3. Huesler defeated Kyle Edmund in three first-round sets while Thiem won the first set against Constant Lestienne in his opening match before the Frenchman retired with a calf injury.