Carlos Alcaraz, world number two, ignited the crowd with beautiful shots and qualified, early this Friday morning, for the semi-final of the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells, California, disputed on hard ground.

The Spaniard beat Canadian Felix Aliassime, ranked 10th in the world and eighth seed, for the first time in his career, 2 sets to 0 with a 6/4 brace after two hours in the last game of the quarter-finals at the Indian Wells Tennis. Garden.

Alcaraz had lost all three previous matches against the Canadian, including two after the Spaniard became number 1 with the US Open title, in the final weeks of 2022.

Carlitos repeats his performance from last year in the California tournament and is two wins away from the title and also a return to world No. 1, overtaking Novak Djokovic.

To take another step, he will have to beat the Italian Jannik Sinner, 13th, who took over the current champion, the American Taylor Fritz, 5th, by 6/4 4/6 6/4.

This will be the tiebreaker between the two. Each won two games and the Spaniard won the last in the quarter-finals of the last US Open, which was one of the best games of 2022.

The game

Both confirmed until Alcaraz made the decisive break to open 5-3 and close 6/4. In the second set, the native of Murcia started with a break, but had a bad game, with mistakes, and suffered the draw, but finally broke to define the game with powerful forehands.

Throughout the match, the Spaniard lifted the crowd with incredible points, saving difficult balls and closing the net well.