Murcian Carlos Alcaraz Garfia already has a challenger for his debut at the Masters 1,000 in Miami, where he will restart the world No. 1 he has held since last Monday. will be Argentinean The opponent of the player from El Palmar (Murcia) is Facundo Bagnis, number 100 and 33 years old.
The Argentinian surpassed Brazilian Felipe Alves, who ranked 164 in the world in the first round and was placed in the previous stage. In three sets, 6-3, 1-6 and 6-4. It will be the third time the Murcian and Argentines will face off, all on clay. The first two were on the Challenger track. Alcaraz won 7-6, 4-6 and 6-2 in the Cordenons quarterfinals in 2020. A student of Juan Carlos Ferrero, who was ranked 217th at the time, lost the final of the Italian tournament against Bernabé Zapata Miralles. For the second time, he was in another Challenger in the final of Oreiras 3 in Portugal, and the current number 1 again prevailed 6-4, 6-4, thereby winning the championship. And the only time they faced each other on the ATP circuit was at the Umag tournament in Croatia in 2022. Alcaraz won 6-0, 6-4 after losing to Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals later in the final.
Bagnis, who until yesterday broke the record of no wins and five losses in ATP tournaments this year.fell to Daniel Evans in the first round of the Australian Open. best result to date A Challenger in Santiago de Chile, where he reached the quarterfinals where he lost to Brazilian Thiago Seyboth Wild, who was ranked 400 in the world.
In theory, Alcaraz shouldn’t have much trouble beating the 33-year-old Argentinian and making it to the third round.It’s where you can meet British Andy Murray, Serbian Dusan Lajovic or American Maxime Cressy, who will be one of the top two rivals in the first round of Masters 1,000, which he won a year before El Palmar, and where he has to repeat the title to secure the number 1 in the world.