ATP Miami, Alcaraz is too much for Musetti: the race stops in the round of 16

Lorenzo Musetti tried to resist, but it wasn’t enough against an excellent Carlos Alcaraz. He ends up with a double 6-3 in favor of the world number 2 the round of 16 of the Masters 1000 in Miami: now the Spaniard will face one of Grigor Dimitrov or Hubert Hurkacz in the quarter-finals. However, the Italian comes out with good feelings after beating Safiullin and Shelton.

The departure from Alcaraz is super: immediately aggressive, always starts the exchange and punishes Musetti with every interlocutory shot. The break comes immediately with a backhand error from the blue provoked by a profound response from the Spaniard. Having immediately taken an advantage, the number 2 in the world experiments and risks something more in the return rounds, while the Carrarino tries to enter the game slowly and loosen up after a tense start.

The Italian remained attached to the set, recovering from 15-40 in the seventh game, serving well and playing a splendid short ball on the second break point. The Murcian continues to serve like a train, he doesn’t let himself be influenced by a couple of points lost due to two errors at 4-3 and he beats Musetti again, taking the first set with a score of 6-3.

Unlike the first set, Musetti manages to stay close to his opponent in the first games of the second set. The third game is spectacular: Alcaraz misses a couple of forehands and a rebound smash, offers two break points to the Italian who also puts on a show with a tweener lob, but in delicate moments the Spaniard is aggressive and goes on to take the point.

At 3-2 the Iberian significantly increases the intensity, starts to block, begins to respond more deeply, while Musetti is not helped by the serve: at the third break point the Spaniard takes the lead with two splendid points closed by the dampener. When he seemed in control at 4-2, Alcaraz makes some mistakes in his turn of serve and gives up serve for the first time in the match. The number 1 seed immediately gets his head back into the match, reacting with a splendid lob and two forehand shots to take the break at 5-3. This time the Spaniard no longer concedes anything and closes at 6-3.

Going to read the statistics, Alcaraz has nine more winners than Musetti (23 against 14), with the Spaniard having committed three fewer free throws. With the serve he obtained 55% of points with the second serve compared to 37% for the Carrarino.

2024-03-26 23:44:24
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