The Spanish Carlos Alcaraz became at 19 years old the youngest tennis player to reach the round of 16 at Roland Garros since 2006, after defeating the American Sebastian Korda 6-4, 6-4 and 6-2 in 2 hours and 6 minutes.
Alcaraz will be measured for a place in the quarterfinals against the Russian Karen Khachanov, who got rid of the 10th in the world, the British Cameron Norrie, 6-2, 7-5, 5-7 and 6-4.
"It’s fun to play on a court like this, with this atmosphere, the night session is fun, people enjoy it. Whenever I play I try to have fun, I like to play tennis, cheer on a crowd like this"assured the Spaniard.
Alcaraz got rid of the only tennis player who this season had managed to beat him on clay, something that happened in the last Monte Carlo tournament.
But, then, the Spaniard arrived with the Miami title recently conquered and with hardly any filming on that surface.
Now, he added his 19th victory on clay and the 31st in total so far this season, in which he has only lost three duels.
Alcaraz continues to set marks of precocity and against Korda, another promising youngster, he developed a more solid game than the one he had shown in the previous phase against his compatriot Albert Ramos, when he had to come back from a match point before prevailing in five sets .
This time he played in the central office of Paris and in the night session, with a very festive atmosphere, with many fans dressed in the Real Madrid shirt on the eve of the Champions League final that tomorrow will face that team against Liverpool.
The Spaniard showed enormous strength and hardly gave a rival a chance that two years ago reached the round of 16, where he ran into another Spaniard, Rafael Nadal.
He displayed the varied game that his first two Masters 1,000 have given him this season, those in Miami and Madrid, but also the tournaments in Rio and Barcelona, in an extraordinary streak that has placed him as one of the favorites to lift the Cup of The Musketeers.
At the moment, he appears as the public’s favorite, who embraces his strength and charisma to unsettle a sport that has been dominated by the same names for many years, those of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, who also made it to the round of 16.