Sharp from the start, Carlos Alcaraz cruises into fourth round at Indian Wells
Defending BNP Paribas Open champion Carlos Alcaraz started slowly in his first match Friday, dropping the first set to unseeded Matteo Arnaldi. In Sunday's match against No. 31 Felix Auger-Aliassime, he wasn't going to let that happen again.
The 20-year-old Alcaraz was in attack mode from the start, breaking Auger-Aliassime's second and fourth service games to take the first set 6-2 in 32 minutes. He was well on his way to a 6-2, 6-3 win and a trip to the fourth round in Indian Wells.
He's defending his title here and he is frequently asked about it, but he said his mindset in regard to a repeat title is pretty simple.
"Well, I think the first thing that you have to do if you want to defend the title is you forget you won the title last year," Alcaraz said. "It's about being yourself, being at 100% every day if you want to do good results here. I'm not thinking about I have to defend the title, I have to play in the final. I'm just focusing on every day, give my 100% in every practice, in every match how I can be better. I think if I'm following that path, I'll do really good results. I think I approach the tournament like this."
If you only watched Sunday's match, it might surprise you to know that Auger-Aliassime led the head-to-head matchup between these two, having won three of the four meetings they played before Sunday. But on this day, it was all Alcaraz.
Alcaraz, who also beat Auger-Aliassime in Indian Wells last year in the quarterfinals, had seven break points and converted four of them, while only yielding one break point to the 23-year-old Canadian which he denied.
He agreed that he played much better tennis on Sunday than he did on Friday night.
"I felt really well on the court. Yeah, I played at a really high level of tennis, so much higher than the first round. Yeah, hopefully keep climbing, my level," Alcaraz said with a smile.
This tournament has been named the players' favorite for the last nine years in a row, and Alcaraz agrees with that assessment. It's not about the weather or the amenities but about the ability to find peace.
"Well, as I said, I love playing here. I think it's called the fifth Grand Slam, and I know why," he said. "I mean, the site is amazing, the courts. I mean, I feel here so peaceful that I think that tennis players, we are going to every tournament and we try to find, you know, that peace off the court, to feel calm, you know, and we find it here."
Alcaraz will look to prolong his peaceful stay here when he faces unseeded Fabian Marozsan of Hungary, the No. 58-ranked player in the world, in the fourth round Tuesday. Marozsan beat Thiago Seyboth Wild of Brazil 6-2, 6-2 earlier Sunday. Maroszan actually beat Alcaraz on the clay in Rome in 2023 in their only previous meeting.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: BNP Paribas Open: Carlos Alcaraz sharp from the start in easy win
