Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz cruises into Indian Wells quarterfinals
Second-ranked Carlos Alcaraz avenged a previous loss to Fabian Marozsan, winning 6-3, 6-3 on Tuesday to reach the quarterfinals of the BNP Paribas Open as the top remaining seed in the men’s draw.
A day after “lucky loser” Luca Nardi stunned No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the third round at Indian Wells, Alcaraz advanced easily over the Hungarian who ousted him from the Italian Open in May. Marozsan was a qualifier and the No. 135 player in the world when he upset Alcaraz — then on the verge of taking the top spot in the rankings — 6-3, 7-6 (4) in the third round in Rome.
“Honestly, I was nervous before the match. I’m not going to lie,” Alcaraz said. “Playing against someone that beat you. … Today I knew what I had to do.”
Alcaraz, the defending champion at Indian Wells, dropped the first set in his opening match this year but has lost just 12 games in the other six sets.
Since <a href=”https://twitter.com/carlosalcaraz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@carlosalcaraz</a> dropped his opening set to Arnaldi 🎾<br><br>R2: 6-0 6-1<br>R3: 6-2 6-3<br>R4: 6-3 6-3<br><br>Outstanding stuff in <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/TennisParadise?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#TennisParadise</a> from the defending champion 👏 <a href=”https://t.co/6hvvFokifE”>pic.twitter.com/6hvvFokifE</a>
—@BNPPARIBASOPEN
Stefanos Tsitsipas wasn’t so lucky, losing to Jiri Lehecka 6-2, 6-4.
On the women’s side, Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk beat Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 6-1, and Anastasia Potapova defeated Jasmine Paolini 7-5, 0-6, 6-3.
