{"id":32960,"date":"2023-05-03T21:28:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T21:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/tennis-alcaraz-downs-khachanov-to\/"},"modified":"2023-05-03T21:30:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T21:30:23","slug":"tennis-alcaraz-downs-khachanov-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/tennis-alcaraz-downs-khachanov-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis-Alcaraz downs Khachanov to reach Madrid semis, flawless Swiatek also through"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Fernando Kallas<\/p>\n

MADRID (Reuters) -World number two Carlos Alcaraz stayed on course for his fourth title of 2023 by powering into the semi-finals of the Madrid Open with a 6-4 7-5 win over Russian Karen Khachanov on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Defending his title from last year, Alcaraz will be looking to celebrate his 20th birthday on Friday with a win against either Croatian Borna Coric or surprise German qualifier Daniel Altmaier in his sixth Masters 1000 event semi-final.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz managed to break the Russian’s serve in the seventh game, closing the first set 6-4.<\/p>\n

However, the Spaniard began the second set a little distracted and allowed Khachanov to open up a 4-1 lead before he woke up to fight back and win the match in under two hours.<\/p>\n

“Winning this match gives me a lot of confidence,” Alcaraz said. <\/p>\n

“Karen had been playing at a high level and took me to the limit, it was decided by small details. <\/p>\n

“I will train for Friday, but with a lot of tranquillity and calm, I will not be overwhelmed and I have to be fresh.”<\/p>\n

Alcaraz has reached 18 consecutive wins in Spanish clay-court tournaments since losing to Rafael Nadal in Madrid two years ago. <\/p>\n

His winning percentage overall on clay is already the third best since 2010 (82.3%), behind only Nadal and Novak Djokovic.<\/p>\n

SWIATEK THRASHES MARTIC <\/p>\n

In the women’s singles, world number one Iga Swiatek showed her clay-court dominance after she beat Petra Martic 6-0 6-3 later on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Swiatek will face Veronika Kudermetova for a place in the final after the Russian beat American Jessica Pegula 6-4 0-6 6-4 and reach the Madrid Open semis earlier.<\/p>\n

“I think it was a pretty solid and clean performance,” Swiatek told a news conference. <\/p>\n

“I’m pretty happy with the way I focused. I was pretty consistent with my tactics and I think it paid off.”<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Christian Radnedge)<\/p>\n

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By Fernando Kallas MADRID (Reuters) -World number two Carlos Alcaraz stayed on course for his fourth title of 2023 by powering into the semi-finals of the Madrid Open with a 6-4 7-5 win over Russian Karen Khachanov on Wednesday. Defending his title from last year, Alcaraz will be looking to celebrate his 20th birthday on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-32960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ420RU-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33280,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32960\/revisions\/33280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}