By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday October 29, 2024
Carlos Alcaraz took out Nicolas Jarry on Tuesday in Paris, reaching the round of 16.
Photo Source: TTV
It’s happy hunting this week for World No.2 Carlos Alcaraz, with Jannik Sinner pulling out of the draw and Novak Djokovic never entering the Rolex Paris Masters, he’s the heavy favorite to win the title.
So far, so good.
The second-seeded Spaniard toppled Chilean Nicolas Jarry on Tuesday, 7-5, 6-1, to reach the round of 16, where either Ugo Humbert or Marcos Giron will wait on Thursday.
It was a relatively straightforward triumph for the 21-year-old four-time Grand Slam champion. He avenged a loss to Jarry in the semifinals at Buenos Aires this year by converting four of five break points.
He battled through a tricky opening set, before hitting his stride in the second. Alcaraz was broken while serving at 5-4 in the first, but went on to win eight of the final nine games against Jarry.
“I think I played really good tennis [in the first set], but at the end it was complicated,” said Alcaraz, who improved to 52-10 on the season, and 16-4 at the Masters 1000 events. “I’m just really happy to get through the opening set, it was really important for me to come into the second with more confidence.”
It was a rough day for other top seeds. Top-seeded Jannik Sinner set the tone by pulling out due to illness. Later, sixth-seeded Andrey Rublev and seventh-seeded Casper Ruud were knocked off, setting up a fight for the last three spots at this year’s ATP Finals.
Novak Djokovic, Ruud and Rublev are currently in those three spots, but could be caught by title runs by Alex de Minaur, Grigor Dimitrov and Stefanos Tsitsipas.