Roland Garros: Alcaraz does not find an enemy in Shapovalov either and is already in the round of 16

He beat the Canadian forcefully (6-1, 6-4, 6-2) and will face the Italian Lorenzo Musetti, who also overwhelmed Cameron Norrie.

When Denis Shapovalov they won their first game, with a serve and volley, smiled and addressed the public demanding due recognition. He had just put a tiny dressing on the bleeding. He was undergoing an annihilation process by Carlos Alcaraz, but it was no longer going to stay at zero. The world number 1 baited with his one-handed backhand and cornered him in such a way that the Canadian hardly knew where the shots were coming from. He was running around Philippe Chatrier moving to swing forehand, trying to protect himself from the bullets. Alcaraz won 6-1, 6-4 and 6-1, in two hours and 10 minutes.

This man liquidated by the Spaniard after a short hiatus in the second set was called to be one of the tennis players with the resources to occupy a place among the best. At 18 years old, and still number 143 in the world, he defeated Rafael Nadal in the round of 16 of the Canadian Masters 1000. Left-handed, talented, aggressive, with one-handed backhands, he was fresh blood and full of promise. In 2019 he played in the final of the Paris-Bercy Masters 1000, helped by the loss of the Spanish due to injury in the semifinals. In 2021 he lost to Djokovic in the Wimbledon semifinals. He came to be top 10. It only has, however, one title: the one achieved in 2019 at the ATP 250 in Stockholm.

Discontinued to 32nd place in the ranking, with only one match won on the previous clay-court tour, Shapovalov has remained in another unfinished project, as was evident in the poor opposition raised against the Spaniard, whose matches to date depend almost exclusively on of himself. Only when he lowers the piston, when he is distracted by his obvious superiority, can his opponents make up the score. From 1-4 that weighed on him in the second quarter, he went to 6-4 that practically sealed his pass to the second round.

Djokovic sweats

after that Novak Djokovicwith whom he could face in the semifinals, invested three hours and 35 minutes in getting rid of Alexander Davidovich, Alcaraz just shredded his third victim in the tournament. The champion in Indian Wells and Buenos Aires and already a double winner in Madrid and Barcelona, ​​a quarterfinalist at Roland Garros last year, maintains the pulse that places him as the top candidate to take over from Nadal as the new champion of the tournament.

His next adversary will be the Italian Lorenzo Musettiwhich knocked down the almost always solvent Cameron Norrie with the same result (6-1, 6-2, 6-4). A whole generational duel against the very fine tennis player from Carrara, only a year older, who already beat him in the final in Hamburg last July, also on clay, the only precedent in major ATP tournaments.