Carlos Alcaraz certainly knows what it means to be a top player. He’s further solidified his status as one of the best in today’s game by beating two of the of the greatest of all-time to reach the final at the Mutua Madrid Open.

After beating his idol Rafael Nadal on Friday and World No. 1 Novak Djokovic on Saturday, Alcaraz described both days as two of the best of his life. In his post-match press conference after his win over the Serbian, he explained what he felt was the key to those victories.

“As I have always said, you have to try to go for the match,” he began. “In those decisive moments is when you see the good players and the top players, that is where you can tell the difference between a good player and a top player, like Djokovic, Rafa, [Roger] Federer, or all the players that are ultimately there for a long time.”

Alcaraz showed no fear in a match of razor-thing margins against Djokovic, staying aggressive throughout and overcoming a lost match point before the decisive tie-break in a comeback 6-7(5), 7-5, 7-6(5) result.

“I want to make a difference on that. I want to make a difference, because in those key, decisive matches, I want to go for the match,” he said. “If I play aggressive or if I lose, I’m going to leave with the feeling that I have come for the match and I just let it go. I will try to have to improve, doing better, but at least I leave the court with the feeling, well, I tried to go for it, I was trying it, and that’s what I was thinking on the tie-break. I just want to step in and go for the match, whatever happens.”

The Spaniard, who turned 19 on Thursday, has enjoyed a meteoric rise over the last 12 months, thanks in large part to that champion’s mentality. He did his best to explain his progress from one year ago in Madrid, when he was easily dispatched by Rafael Nadal, yet to break into the Top 100 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

“Honestly, I would say that I am more mature to manage the tough moments, the nerves, to manage everything on court. I think I am able to play long rallies,” he said.

“I’m ready to play against this kind of player.”

Already an ATP Masters 1000 champion following is title run at the Miami Open presented by Itau, Alcaraz is now one win away from a Spanish double following his Barcelona title last month. 

“It’s probably one of the best days of my career, of my life, without doubts,” he said after becoming the youngest man to beat a World No. 1 since Nadal beat Roger Federer at Roland Garros in 2005. “But I don’t know what to answer really. Probably in some time or maybe tomorrow I can even tell you tomorrow it really is my best day of my life.”

He awaits the winner of Saturday’s second semi-final between Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas.

The third and final clay-court ATP Masters 1000 event kicks off Sunday at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, with Frances Tiafoe, Marin Cilic and two Italian wild cards among those in action on Day 1.

View Schedule | View Singles Draw | View Doubles Draw

American Tiafoe will be aiming to capture his maiden win in Rome in what will be his third appearance at the tournament when he faces Serbian Filip Krajinovic in the opening match on Center Court.

Tiafoe currently holds a 7-3 record on the season on clay, having advanced to his first final of the year on the surface in Estoril. Meanwhile, Krajinovic will be targeting a second win of the season on the red dirt, after advancing to the second round on home soil in Belgrade.

Tiafoe and Krajinovic are locked in at 1-1 in their ATP Head2Head series, with the Serbian winning their only previous clay meeting at Roland Garros in 2019.

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Two Italian wild cards will make their debuts in Rome, with Matteo Arnaldi facing Marin Cilic and Francesco Passaro taking on Cristian Garin.

Arnaldi is currently at a career-high No. 277 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, having reached one ATP Challenger Tour semi-final this season. The 21-year-old will face a difficult test against former World No. 3 Cilic, who reached the semi-finals in Rome in 2018.

The World No. 366 Passaro advanced to the championship match at a Challenger Tour event in San Remo last month and will take on five-time tour-level champ Garin in the second match on Center Court.

Garin is competing in the Italian capital for the third time, with his best result this season a run to the semi-finals in Houston.

South African Lloyd Harris and Aslan Karatsev round out the Day 1 action on Grand Stand Arena, with both players trying to find form. Karatsev triumphed in their only previous meeting in the Dubai final last season.

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic heaped praise on #NextGenATP Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz following their semi-final clash on Saturday at the Mutua Madrid Open.

The Serbian was aiming to reach a record-extending 55th ATP Masters 1000 final, but was unable to overcome the 19-year-old, who will try and win his second Masters 1000 crown on Sunday against Alexander Zverev or Stefanos Tsitsipas.

“Congrats to him. He held his nerve very well,” Djokovic said in his post-match press conference. “For somebody of his age to play so maturely and courageously is impressive. He deserved to win.

“His kick in altitude here is huge, and it was just difficult to deal with his ball, and I wasn’t feeling my return from that side. He was serving a lot of kick just to put himself in a good position.”

Despite his defeat, Djokovic enjoyed a strong week in the Spanish capital, earning straight-set wins against Gael Monfils and Hubert Hurkacz as he continued to build momentum following his run to the final in Belgrade last month.

The 34-year-old, who is a three-time champion in Madrid, felt that his performance against Alcaraz was the best he has produced this season.

“I definitely played very good tennis, I mean, the best that I have played this year,” Djokovic said. “Probably when the disappointment of losing this match passes, I will have a lot of positives to take away from this week.”

Djokovic will now turn his attention to the Internazionali BNL d’Italia, where he will compete as the top seed in Rome at the final clay-court Masters 1000 of the season.

Saturday is semi-final day at the Mutua Madrid Open, with both the men’s singles and doubles draws getting down to the business end at the ATP Masters 1000 event. The first ATP Head2Head meeting between top seed Novak Djokovic and home favourite Carlos Alcaraz is scheduled for 4 p.m. local time, with the 11th matchup between defending champion Alexander Zverev and Stefanos Tsitsipas set to close out the day’s play in Manolo Santana Stadium.

In the doubles action on Court Arantxa Sanchez, Miami champions Hubert Hurkacz and John Isner seek a second straight title in their partnership.

View Singles Draw | View Doubles Draw | View Schedule

[1] Novak Djokovic (SER) vs. [7] Carlos Alcaraz (ESP)

After beating Rafael Nadal for the first time in three tries in Friday’s quarter-finals, becoming the first teenager to defeat his countryman on clay, the 19-year-old Alcaraz has a chance to beat World No. 1 Djokovic for the first time in the semis. While Alcaraz has won back-to-back three-setters to reach this stage, extending his win streak to eight in the process following his Barcelona title, Djokovic has not dropped a set in Madrid. The Serbian moved efficiently past Gael Monfils and Hurkacz either side of a walkover against Andy Murray.

With Djokovic and Alcaraz yet to meet on the ATP Tour, we can look at their respective Balance of Power and Conversion & Steal metrics to get a sense for how the match might play out. In short, Balance of Power measures to the percentage of shots a player hits from an attacking position, while the Conversion & Steal rates quantify how often a player “converts” points from an attacking position and “steals” points from defence.

The figures below for the four semi-finalists are from this week Madrid, where Djokovic and Alcaraz practised together ahead of the tournament.

While both Djokovic and Alcaraz are above average in all three categories, Djokovic dominates in the Balance of Power, where he is seven per centage points (or 33 per cent) ahead of the field. The Serbian excels in controlling rallies by getting on the front foot, and converts on 73 per cent of points in which he gains an attacking advantage. 

Alcaraz shines in the Steal metric, where he is eight percentage points (or 18.6 per cent) above Tour average. The Spaniard has proven expert at using his speed and defence to turn points around in Madrid, never more crucially than on match point against Nadal, where he capped off a mad dash with a passing shot winner.

Looking ahead to the prospect of facing a second legend in as many days, Alcaraz credited his opponent while maintaining a strong sense of self-belief.

“Of course Djokovic is one of the best players of history for me. Everything that he has achieved for tennis, it’s amazing. You just can admire him,” he said.

“I have lived tough moments. [This is] the first time that I’m going to face him, but it’s not the first time I’m going to play in front of a lot of people in a great court, in a semi-finals of a Masters 1000. So I’m going to step into the court the way I have stepped out today. Of course there are going to be nerves, but I’m going to try to manage them in the best possible way, and I’m going to try to give a good level. I know that I’m going to have opportunities, and of course the training that I have had with him this week, it helps me a little bit to know how to face him in tomorrow’s match.”

Djokovic was equally laudatory in his assessment of the Spaniard, noting that he loves to watch Alcaraz play. He was also quick to compliment the way his opponent handles himself both on and off the court, with Alcaraz climbing three places this week to No. 6 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings.

“His growth, his improvement, and his journey particularly the last six months has been amazing,” he said. “I praise his game without a doubt. He’s fantastic for our sport, no doubt. I think it’s great that we have a young player who is doing so well and giving a new fresh breath to the tennis world. Seeing that and knowing that he’s a very nice guy, very humble with good values, it’s a perfect combination.”

Nadal offered his own preview of the match in his post-match presser: “Carlos can win perfectly. I don’t see any reason why he cannot win,” he previewed. “It’s true that he cannot have the downside that he had in the second set, talking about today’s match… It’s true that Carlos plays a lot with adrenaline, with momentum. When adrenaline goes up, he’s practically unstoppable, but then in some moments he commits errors, but it’s logical because he plays with a lot of risk. It’s his way of playing, and in that sense I think he has the level to be able to win [against] anyone in the world.

“We will see what happens tomorrow. I guess it depends on who plays better.”

[2] Alexander Zverev (GER) vs. [4] Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE)

Zverev and Tsitsipas will contest a rematch of their Monte Carlo semi-final, which Tsitsipas dominated on the way to his second straight title in the Principality. The Greek, who did not know his semi-final opponent at the conclusion of a three-set win over Andrey Rublev on Friday, does not necessarily expect a repeat performance in the final rounds in Madrid.

“I had a good result [in Monte Carlo] but that doesn’t really mean anything for me,” he cautioned. “Madrid has it’s own challenges. Obviously a different climate, different conditions. I’m feeling great, to be honest, and I really hope that I can continue that way, playing so aggressive and being creative on the court.”

Two-time Madrid champion Zverev felt he played his best match in recent months in a straight-sets quarter-final win over Felix Auger-Aliassime, though eight second-set double faults made the match more complicated than he would have liked. But the German recovered well to close out the dangerous Canadian and maintained a positive outlook post-match as he continues his title defence.

He had high praise for his semi-final opponent as he looked ahead to the rematch: “Rafa is on his way back and Novak is starting to gain momentum, but right now maybe he’s the best clay-court player in the world,” Zverev said of Tsitsipas.

“I think I need to play my best level to have a chance, but I’m looking forward to this match because in Monte Carlo he beat me quite easily. I hope I can change that.”

Tsitsipas has notched an ATP Tour-leading 27 match wins this season, reaching the Australian Open semi-finals and the Rotterdam final in addition to his Monte Carlo success. But he is 1-2 against Top 10 opposition, with his victory over World No. 3 Zverev his best win by the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

The German is seeking a sixth ATP Masters 1000 title and a 10th final appearance at that level. Two of those five trophies have come in Madrid, in 2018 and 2021. Outside of the Big 4, the 25-year-old has more ATP Masters 1000 titles than any active player. 

Doubles Semi-finals

Both men’s doubles semis are scheduled for Arantxa Sanchez Stadium, with three doubles-specialist duos and a team of singles stars fighting for the Madrid title.

A rematch of the Miami Open presented by Itau final opens play, with Hurkacz and Isner seeking another victory against seventh seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski. Hurkacz and Isner have not teamed since that Miami win, while their opponents are coming off a heartbreaking match Tie-break loss in the Barcelona final. The new-look Dutch-British duo has won three titles and reached two finals since first teaming up in January.

Fifth-seeded Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah will meet eighth seeds Jamie Murray and Michael Venus in the second semi-final.

Alexander Zverev’s dominant ground game propelled him into the semi-finals of the Mutua Madrid Open as he battled through eight second-set double faults to defeat Felix Auger-Aliassime, 6-3, 7-5.

“I think this was maybe the best match of the last few months from my side, except maybe the end a little bit,” Zverev assessed. “Throughout one-and-a-half sets I played good tennis and I hope I can continue playing this way.”

The German defending champion was on course for a routine victory on Friday at the ATP Masters 1000 event, up a set and break with four chances to make it a double break in the second, but a late wobble gave Auger-Aliassime a lifeline to extend the match. After Zverev missed out on that quartet of break chances at 4-1, the Canadian secured his first break of the match on the way to levelling the set.

But the second seed reasserted himself late, creating two match points on the return at 4-5 before closing out the contest with his fourth break of the match to avoid a tie-break.

“I couldn’t put a serve in the court,” Zverev said, explaining why the match tightened up late on. “I had chances to go up 5-1 in the second set and I think the match would have been over. But I didn’t use my chances and he fought back well. But I kept fighting as well, and that’s how I got the win.”

The German was at his imperious best from the baseline throughout, gaining the advantage early and often in the rallies and frequently closing points out at the net. He broke early and late in both sets, though the two stanzas took on an entirely different complexion with Zverev’s late struggles on serve.

Despite nine double faults in the match, Zverev still won 14 of 25 second-serve points (56 per cent), far outpacing Auger-Aliassime’s 13 of 34 (38 per cent). Zverev’s dominance extended to first serve as well, where he won 74 per cent of points to his opponent’s 65 per cent.

After improving to 5-2 in his ATP Head2Head against the Canadian and gaining a measure of revenge from an ATP Cup loss in January, Zverev will now look to avenge a Monte Carlo semi-final loss to Stefanos Tsitsipas in the next round. The Greek leads that matchup 7-3, including a 3-0 mark on clay.

“Rafa is on his way back and Novak is starting to gain momentum, but right now maybe he’s the best clay-court player in the world,” Zverev said of Tsitsipas. “I think I need to play my best level to have a chance, but I’m looking forward to this match because in Monte Carlo he beat me quite easily. I hope I can change that.” 

Kevin Anderson remembers when his father, Michael, put a tennis racquet in his hand at the age of six in their native South Africa. The elder Anderson instilled a hard-working attitude in his son from the very beginning. The idea was that if Kevin worked as hard as possible, he would have no regrets. From that moment, Anderson did everything in his power to succeed.

“I really feel like I’ve lived my life that way,” Anderson told ATPTour.com this week after announcing his retirement. “I can remember back as a kid in South Africa being away from the tennis scene, away from the tennis world. I’m just proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish.”

The 35-year-old climbed to a career-high No. 5 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, won seven ATP Tour titles, reached the final at two Grand Slams and earned respect of the fans and his peers alike.

Anderson played more than 600 tour-level matches (354-253), and competed for the final time at this year’s Miami Open presented by Itau.

“It was on my mind that it might have been it,” Anderson said. “But it was sort of halfway through leaving the court [when I started] thinking, ‘You know what, I may or may not be playing another match’.”

The South African did not immediately make his decision to hang up his racquet. But for the first time in his career, Anderson began asking himself a key question: Why do you want to keep playing?

“It’s what I do, I’m a tennis player. I’ve done this since I was five or six years old,” Anderson recalled thinking. “That’s not a good enough reason to keep going. I think one of my strongest attributes has been to put my head down, keep fighting and figuring it out. I think it was hard for me to walk away and not even acknowledge that maybe I lost some of the passion and motivation to keep playing. I was still passionate and motivated, it just is different.”

From his early days holding a racquet, Anderson “stopped at nothing” in pursuit of maximising his potential. The Johannesburg native reached a career-high No. 28 in the ITF Junior Rankings, but decided to play college tennis for the University of Illinois.

Brad Dancer’s first responsibility as an assistant coach at Illinois was to recruit Anderson at the 2004 US Open boys’ singles event. Dancer, who became the head coach during Anderson’s time there, recalled catching only three games of his match against Andreas Beck because he lost in

just 43 minutes. What stood out to the coach from his early days interacting with Anderson was his attitude towards such moments.

“He’s just able to pound through everything and keep coming back. That’s not just injuries, that is also inside matches,” Dancer said. “He’d have heartbreak after heartbreak in match situations and he’d keep coming back and be tougher the next point and in the next game. Kevin’s mental toughness is by far his greatest asset.”

Anderson, who immediately caught people’s attention with his 6’8” frame and booming game, earned All-American honours each of his three years at Illinois before embarking on his professional journey. In 2008, he cracked the Top 100 of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings for the first time.

It was fitting that the South African lifted his first ATP Tour trophy in Johannesburg in 2011, just 20 minutes from where he grew up. Friends and family filled the stands for a moment he will never forget. The following year, Anderson triumphed in Delray Beach, which was also special, as it became a training ground for him.

But most impressive was how Anderson overcame injury obstacles later in his career. After cracking the Top 10 for one week in October 2015, a series of injuries limited his progress. From the knee and ankle to shoulder and hip, the more hurdles he leapt over, the more appeared.

“Part of my nature is always figuring it out. Giving up or not being up for a challenge was never an acceptable thought for me,” Anderson said. “Always, no matter how difficult the situation was, I was going to figure it out and come back stronger.”

At his healthy best, the right-hander’s serve put pressure on opponents to seize their opportunities, because they did not come often. For someone standing 6’8”, Anderson proved a strong mover capable of hanging from the baseline with nearly anyone. And if you threw in a lazy second serve, he never feared stepping in to pummel it. Add that to his unrelenting competitive spirit, and you had an opponent as tough as any player.

^{Photo Credit: Getty Images}
In 2017 and 2018, after falling as low as World No. 80, that showed. His big breakthrough came at the 2017 US Open, when he advanced to the championship match having previously made just one major quarter-final. After narrowly missing out on a big goal, which was to qualify for the Nitto ATP Finals, the South African forged forward.

At Wimbledon the following year, he went on a jaw-dropping run to the championship match. Anderson rallied from two sets down to stun Roger Federer 13-11 in the fifth set of their quarter-final, before clawing past John Isner 26-24 in the fifth set of their semi-final, which lasted an astonishing six hours and 36 minutes. That remains the second-longest Grand Slam match in history.

“What an amazing career you had, Kevin, and it was an honour to play against you in college and 15 years on Tour,” Isner wrote on social media following Anderson’s announcement. “Enjoy retirement, you’ve earned yourself a great life after tennis!”

In 2018, Anderson, then 32, cracked the top five and qualified for the season finale at The O2 in London. Only five players have broke into the top five in their 30s, and three of them did so in 1973 or 1974, within the first year of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings.

Players To Crack Top Five In Their 30s

By finishing year-end No. 6 in 2018, Anderson became the second-oldest player to finish in the year-end Top 10 for the first time since 1973, further showing his late-career success.

There is a cliché that if you “check every box”, good things will happen. But Anderson made the boxes bigger, lengthened the list and hit his mark each day until he achieved his goals.

“I never felt like taking a shortcut if I’d been injured or something,” Anderson said. “Throughout my career, all the sacrifices I had to make I did so willingly, because I had this motivation to keep pushing myself and keep getting better.”

“He loves playing tennis, he loved competing in tennis. He loved everything that went into it and he pushed himself to his absolute upper limits,” Dancer added. “He just tested himself as much as he possibly could, which is awesome.”

Although injuries returned to prevent Anderson from climbing even further, he never stopped working. That allowed him to maintain a high level until the end, winning an ATP Tour trophy in front of his young daughter, Keira and wife Kelsey — who has been by his side since their days at Illinois — last year in Newport aged 35.

^{Photo Credit: Ben Solomon/International Tennis Hall of Fame}
Anderson’s decision to retire did not come overnight. His desire to put in the work as he has for 30 years was not quite the same. And for an “all-in” professional, it was all-in or all-out.

Anderson also left his mark off the court, winning the 2018 Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award and spending years on the ATP Player Council, most recently as its president. Although nothing is set in stone moving forward, the Florida resident recently joined the board of First Serve, a nonprofit that helps at-risk kids in the state. He also wants to further the conversation about mental health and has enjoyed providing guidance to local kids pursuing their own dreams in tennis like he did in South Africa years ago.

For years, Anderson was one of the most focussed players on the ATP Tour. But recently, he realised that allowing himself to consider whether he wanted to continue his career was not accepting failure. It was an opportunity to open a new chapter for which, like always, he will give everything he has.

“In order to be the best in the world I needed to live and breathe tennis all the time,” Anderson said. “You just become so consumed with it that you kind of forget that there is life outside of tennis, so I’ve kind of experienced that for the past four weeks and I’m really excited about what the future may bring.”

Stefanos Tsitsipas overcame a serious examination from Andrey Rublev at the Mutua Madrid Open on Friday, clinching a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 victory in the Spanish capital to reach a 10th ATP Masters 1000 semi-final.

Tsitsipas lifted his second Masters 1000 title at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters in April and the 23-year-old looks to have maintained that form as he chases a second title of the season. Unlike his relatively straightforward opening victories in Madrid over Lucas Pouille and Grigor Dimitrov, however, the fourth seed’s meeting with Rublev was a see-saw affair in which both players enjoyed spells of domination.

“He was really applying a lot of force into the strokes, and it wasn’t easy predicting what was going to come next,” said Tsitsipas after fending off two Rublev break points in the final game to clinch the win. “But I’m very glad with the way things ended.

“It’s never easy playing him, and I really had to survive that last game with my best strength and give out my soul, pretty much, to finish it in such a good way.”

A 4-4 ATP Head2Head series record coming into the match suggested little to separate Tsitsipas and Rublev, and so it proved in a dramatic encounter on Manolo Santana Stadium. Yet it was the Greek who finished strongest in a one-hour, 59-minute encounter as he avenged defeat in the pair’s most recent meeting at November’s Nitto ATP Finals.

Tsitsipas came out firing on serve and took the first set courtesy of a break in the second game of the match. The Greek dropped just six points on serve behind his delivery in the set but was aided by a slow start from Rublev, who showed his frustration as he struggled to land his trademark booming groundstrokes.

As he did against Jack Draper and Daniel Evans in his previous matches, Rublev found a way to reset and he found his groove to storm back into the match in spectacular style. Rublev reeled off four games in a row from 2-2 in the second set as he began to showcase the sort of brutal forehand hitting that took him to an 11th tour-level title in Belgrade two weeks ago.

Most Tour-Level Match Wins In 2022

An even encounter seemed destined for a deciding tie-break until Tsitsipas produced a high-class return game to break in the ninth game of the third set before serving out for victory. The win improves the 2019 finalist’s record against Top 10 opponents to 26-34, and Tsitsipas will feel he has the momentum to go all the way this week as he chases a maiden title in Madrid.

The Greek is nonetheless refusing to get carried away with his good form. “I had a good result [in Monte Carlo] but that doesn’t really mean anything for me,” said Tsitsipas. “Madrid has it’s own challenges. Obviously a different climate, different conditions.

“I’m feeling great, to be honest, and I really hope that I can continue that way, playing so aggressive and being creative on the court.”

His semi-final opponent will be the winner of the last quarter-final on Friday’s schedule, Felix Auger-Aliassime or defending champion Alexander Zverev.

Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah moved to within two wins of capturing their third ATP Masters 1000 title together Friday, downing Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos 7-6(5), 6-4 to reach the Mutua Madrid Open semi-finals.

Cabal and Farah, who last triumphed at a Masters 1000 event in 2019 in Rome, won 88 per cent (37/42) of their first-serve points and saved all three break points they faced to advance after one hour and 37 minutes.

The fifth seeds are aiming to win their first title of the season in Madrid and will next play Jamie Murray and Michael Venus after the eighth seeds eliminated Simone Bolelli and Ivan Dodig 7-6(5), 7-6(7).

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The Briton and New Zealander saved two set points in the second set to move through after one hour and 56 minutes. Last week, Murray and Venus reached the semi-finals in Estoril.

Seventh seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski continued their strong year by moving past Tomislav Brkic and Nikola Cacic 6-3, 6-7(6), 10-2 in one hour and 55 minutes. The Dutch-British pair has won three tour-level titles together this year and are currently first in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Teams Rankings.

They will meet John Isner and Hubert Hurkacz in the final after the Miami doubles champs edged Germans Kevin Krawietz and Andreas Mies 4-6, 7-6(5), 10-5.