Carlos Alcaraz surged into the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Open in style with a 6-1, 6-4 win over Italy's Luca Nardi.
The Spaniard completed the opening set in 27 minutes, compensating for a late start to his evening session following rain earlier in the day, which had caused Centre Court to fall behind schedule.
In the second set, Alcaraz was down 2-4 before stringing together four consecutive games to close out the victory in 80 minutes. The momentum-shifter was a nine-deuce game at 4-4, with Nardi double-faulting twice in a row to give the second seed an opportunity to serve out the match, ATP reported.
A 21-time tour-level titlewinner, Alcaraz is pursuing his initial Cincinnati crown. He made it to the final in 2023 and had championship point against him before Novak Djokovic came back to win the title. The 22-year-old may be set to face World No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the final for a fourth consecutive tournament that both have played. Then he will play ninth seed Andrey Rublev, who beat Francisco Comesana 6-2, 6-3 to reverse his first-round Wimbledon defeat to the Argentine last season.
Defending Sinner also secured his spot in the final eight, defeating French qualifier Adrian Mannarino 6-4, 7-6(4) in a rain-hit encounter. The victory puts Sinner on the verge of holding onto his crown and claiming his first ATP Masters 1000 crown of the season.
His 48-minute, one-hour victory took his hard-court unbeaten sequence to 24 matches, breaking Novak Djokovic's 2015 record of 23 consecutive victories and ranking eighth on the century's list of longest hard-court winning streaks. The Italian's previous defeat on the surface was against Alcaraz in the Beijing final last October, ATP figures showed. Sinner will next meet either 23rd seed Felix Auger-Aliassime or fellow Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi in his fifth quarterfinal of 2025.
In other play, third seed Alexander Zverev was leading 14th seed Karen Khachanov 7-5, 3-0 when the Toronto finalist retired after 70 minutes of play.
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