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Carlos Alcaraz opened the ATP’s season-ending championships, and the battle for the year-end No 1 ranking, in ideal fashion as he confidently navigated a turbulent opening set before easing to a 7-6 (5), 6-2 win over the seventh seed, Alex de Minaur, in Turin.
Alcaraz, the top seed, is attempting to win the ATP Finals for the first time and hold off Jannik Sinner to finish the season as the top-ranked player. Despite ceding significant ground to the Italian in recent weeks by losing to Cameron Norrie in his opening match at the Paris Masters, which Sinner won, Alcaraz still holds a clear advantage this week since the Italian is defending his title from last year. The Spaniard must win all three of his round-robin group stage matches or reach the final in order to secure the top ranking.
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Although this has been the best season of Alcaraz’s career, he still has much to prove on indoor hard courts where he has so far struggled to replicate his results on other surfaces. He won his first and only indoor title at the ATP 500 event in Rotterdam this year and his semi-final run in 2023 remains his best result at this tournament. During his first years on the tour, Alcaraz was also often too mentally and physically fatigued in the final weeks of the year to produce his best tennis.
However, he looks fresh and sharp at the end of a taxing season and he demonstrated that sharpness deep in the opening set tie-break against De Minaur. Alcaraz was on track to an easy victory early on, establishing a 4-1, 0-40 lead on the Australian’s serve. But De Minaur admirably fought back, forcing a tie-break and establishing a 5-3 lead.
As he has already done so many times in his young career, Alcaraz locked in mentally and found his very best level with his back to the wall, rolling through the final four points of the tie-break to snatch the set: “I think he was playing much better in the tie-break,” said Alcaraz. “So I just tried to stay strong mentally, just to stay focused on the next point, stay focused on the goals that I had to chase in the match. I’m really happy that since 3-5, I made great points. In the second set, probably the nerves were gone. I could enjoy a lot playing my style and I’m happy that I got it in two sets, finally.”
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Ben Shelton and Alexander Zverev will headline Sunday’s evening session, while Alcaraz will next face the winner of the group stage match between Taylor Fritz and Lorenzo Musetti on Tuesday. Fritz and Musetti will not compete until Monday in order to give Musetti an extra rest day after competing in the Athens final on Saturday. Musetti lost that final in three gruelling sets to Novak Djokovic, but Djokovic’s subsequent withdrawal from the ATP Finals secured his qualification. Sinner, meanwhile, will begin his title defence on Monday against Félix Auger-Aliassime, the eighth seed.
