Spanish tennis player carlos alcaraznumber two in the world beat Chilean Nicolás Jarry 6-7 (2), 7-5, 6-0 this Saturday He reached the semi-finals of the Rio de Janeiro Open and the finals of the Brazilian tournament. He will face England’s Cameron Norrie on Sunday.. The final of the only ATP 500 tournament in South America will bring together the same two tennis players who made it to the final at the Argentine Open last Sunday: Alcaraz and Norrie, who won in 2022 in Brazil and won in Buenos Aires, are number one. 13th in the ATP standings and second favorite in Rio.
The first favorite of Brazil and the current US Open champion, the 19-year-old tennis player from Murcia had to bounce back in a tough 2 hours and 42 minutes in the first set against Jarry (111 ATP). He needed a massage per second, and it got him back on the championship course. The Spaniard, who returned to the circuit last week after taking a break for four months due to his injury and has already achieved a championship and a final, had never met the Chilean and felt the aggressive tennis of the 1.98-meter South American tennis player on his skin. Along with Argentina’s Máximo González, he is a semi-finalist at the 2018 Rio Open and the 2019 team champion.
Jarry has played the first semi-final of an ATP tournament in Rio since 2019 as he took several months to return to the main circuit after an eleven-month suspension for doping in January 2020. He barely performed well to register in the main group, knocking out sixth-favourite Argentine Sebastián Báez (35 ATP) and No. 21 ATP and third-seeded Italian Lorenzo Musetti in the quarterfinals.
Who will be Alcaraz’s opponent in the final? Norrie (3), who beat Bernabé Zapata 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 in the semi-finals this Saturday (63 ATP), but visibly exhausted after 2 hours 29 minutes of a game that had to be decided in the tiebreaks of the last round. The 27-year-old British tennis player, who has won four ATP titles, is the most victorious tennis player this season with 17 wins. Sunday’s will be the fourteenth final of his career and his third this year.
More aggressive and faster tennis player than the world’s number two, Jarry surprised the Spaniard in the first set by breaking his first two serves and taking a 4-1 lead in just 25 minutes. Alcaraz barely started to recover from game six, confirming two serves and breaking two of Chile’s to equalize the game 6-6, forcing a tiebreak. However, the 27-year-old Santiago tennis player was more effective in the tiebreaks, where he won 7-2 to win the set 7-6.
The second set started more evenly and the tie continued until 5-5, after complaining of discomfort and receiving a quick massage on the bench, Alcaraz reacted and quickly confirmed his last serve and smashed Chile in the final match to take the win. Connect the lever 7-5 and the match. The Spaniard maintained this momentum in the third set as well, recovering physically, breaking Jarry’s three serves and confirming his own serve, winning the set 6-0 and the game 2-1.
The ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro, which continues until Sunday on the clay courts of the Brazilian Jockey Club, with prizes of $2.2 million, is part of the South American dirt tour, starting with the Cordoba Open and Argentina. It is open and ends next week in Santiago (Chile) with ATP 250.