Alcaraz left stunned in defeat to Dimitrov
MIAMI: Eleventh-seeded Grigor Dimitrov came out strong against top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz and went on to win 6-2, 6-4 in the Miami Open quarter-finals, his first victory over a topfive player in nearly five years.
Fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev, who beat Fabian Marozsan 6-3, 7-5, will play Dimitrov for a place in the final.
Alcaraz, the 2022 champion, entered this tournament off a victory over Medvedev at Indian Wells. But the world’s secondranked player had trouble finding his game against Dimitrov and became visibly frustrated numerous times in the first set.
But Alcaraz didn’t go away even after falling behind a break at 4-2 in the second set. He broke Dimitrov at love and then held serve to even the set at 4-4. Dimitrov, though, won the final two games breaking Alcaraz again.
Indian Wells champion Alcaraz said Dimitrov played “almost perfect.”
“I have a lot of frustrations right now because he made me feel like I’m 13 years old,” Alcaraz, 20, said. “It was crazy. I was talking to my team saying that I don’t know what I have to do. I don’t know his weakness. I don’t know anything.”
This was Dimitrov’s first victory over a top-five player since he beat then-no. 3 Roger Federer in the quarter-finals of the 2019 US Open.
“In order to win against him (Alcaraz), you have to play at your best,” said Dimitrov. “I came into the match very focused and I think extremely clear on what I had to do. Sometimes simplicity is genius.”
Rybakina to take on unseeded Collins in final
On the women’s side, fourthseeded Elena Rybakina once again had to go three sets, pushed to the edge before beating No. 27 Victoria Azarenka 6-4, 0-6, 7-6(2) in the semi-finals.
Rybakina, ranked fourth on the WTA Tour, will on Saturday face unseeded Danielle Collins, who defeated No. 14 Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-2. Rybakina also made last year’s final, losing in straight sets to Petra Kvitova.