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19th Seed Carlos Alcaraz of Spain thrashed 26th seed Gael Monfils of France 7-5, 6-1 to move into the quarter-finals of the Indian Wells Masters tournament on Wednesday. The match lasted for one hour and 17 minutes. Monfils, who stunned top seed Daniil Medvedev in his previous match, could not cope with the firepower of the 18-year old Spanish sensation today.
Alcaraz will face defending champion Cameron Norrie in the quarterfinals.
On that note, let's take a look at the three factors that stood out in today’s match:
#1 Both players served well and exchanged blows from the baseline during the first half hour
Both Alcaraz and Monfils are known to have powerful groundstrokes and they demonstrated their entire repertoire of shots during the first half hour of the match. They also served well, and their first-serve ratios hovered around the 70% mark.
As a result, neither player could break in the first 10 games of the match. Monfils played some powerful forehands, one of which was hit at a speed of 124 miles per hour. Meanwhile, Alcaraz exhibited great court coverage by retrieving balls to stay in the rallies.
#2 Carlos Alcaraz raised his level as Gael Monfils started committing errors
Carlos Alcaraz finally succeeded in breaking the Frenchman in the 11th game of the match to go 6-5 up. Monfils, who had been very disciplined in his shot-making for the first 10 games, committed as many as four unforced errors in the 11th and allowed the Spaniard to gain some crucial momentum.
Alcaraz then served out the first set. He also employed the strategy of pushing the Frenchman back with his powerful shots and then playing drop shots to finish the points. He ended up playing some sumptuous drop shots in the process.
#3 Carlos Alcaraz ran away with the second set and the match
Carlos Alcaraz then stepped up a gear and won the first four games of the second set in a commanding manner. Aside from hitting winners with his powerful forehand, he also showed great defensive prowess and kept frustrating Monfils with his supreme court coverage. On the other hand, the quality of serve dropped for the Frenchman and he ended the match with a first-serve percentage of 55%.
The 35-year-old Frenchman looked tired in the second set and began to leak unforced errors. Monfils managed to salvage some pride by holding his serve in the fifth game of the second set, but Alcaraz got another break to win the match. The Spaniard won nine of the last 10 games played in the match.
The dominance of the Spaniard was evident from the fact that Monfils did not get a single break point in the match. Alcaraz won 84% of the points on his serve and hit 22 winners against Monfils’ nine. Moreover, the Frenchman could only win 40% of the points on his second serve.
