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12th seed Tommy Paul of the United States caused a big upset by beating top seed and World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz of Spain 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the 2023 Canadian Open on Friday. The match went on for almost three hours, with the American registering a memorable win in the end.
Paul will now face seventh seed Jannik Sinner of Italy in the semifinal on Saturday. Sinner will start as the favourite, but Paul will fancy his chances, having performed a giant-killing act once already in the tournament.
On that note, let us take a look at two things that stood out in the match:
#1 Tommy Paul's forehand caused Carlos Alcaraz a lot of trouble
Tommy Paul kept testing Alcaraz's court-coverage with his neatly-placed forehands throughout the match. The American's crosscourt forehand and inside-out forehand made Alcaraz stretch to either side repeatedly, constantly making him work for his points.
Paul made a great start to the match, breaking the 20-year-old Spaniard in the very first game of the match. He then held his serve to extend the lead and broke Alcaraz once again in the seventh game to go 5-2 up.
However, Alcaraz then broke back to reduce the deficit, but was broken again in the subsequent game to hand the set to Paul. The Spaniard committed a double fault on set point to allow the American to take a 1-0 lead.
#2 Carlos Alcaraz started playing drop shots more often, but Tommy Paul had his measure soon
Alcaraz started playing his trademark drop shots more often from the second set onwards, thereby repeatedly dragging Paul to the net. The Spaniard reaped the rewards almost immediately, as the American initially struggled to cope with the former's change of tactics.
However, the American started moving comfortably to the net as the match progressed and often managed to get to the ball well in time. Moreover, Paul also hit the backhand volleys really well to win some points through them.
Alcaraz got the decisive break in the second set to draw level, but Paul broke him in the eighth game of the third set to go 5-3 up and then served out the match. Incidentally, Alcaraz took the risk of playing a drop shot on match point too, but Paul got to it on time to dispatch a winner off his forehand.
Paul also repeatedly exploited Alcaraz's second serve in the match. Alcaraz won 71% of the points on his first serve against Paul's 63%, but struggled on his second serve considerably more than the American did.
