Top seed Carlos Alcaraz of Spain beat eighth seed Felix Auger-Aliassime of Canada 6-4 6-4 in the quarterfinal of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on Thursday. The 19-year-old Spaniard is eyeing his third career Masters 1000 title there and will face Jannik Sinner of Italy in the semifinal on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s match was over within a couple of hours, as Alcaraz was decidedly the superior player. The slower conditions favored him and Auger-Aliassime could not do much to trouble him. We will now take a look how the match progressed:<\/p>\n
Both Carlos Alcaraz and Auger-Aliassime went around their backhand repeatedly to hit inside-out and inside-in forehands. The Spaniard exploited Auger-Aliassime\u2019s weaker backhand with his inside-out forehand, as the latter tried to avoid hitting off his backhand as much as possible. On a few occasions, Alcaraz put pressure on Auger-Aliassime by playing a forceful inside-out approach shot before going to the net to finish the point.<\/p>\n
The Canadian started going into the net frequently as the first set progressed, but Alcaraz managed to pass him on a few occasions. However, Auger-Aliassime\u2019s big first serve<\/a> allowed him to get a few easy points and he also managed to save a couple of break points in the fifth game.<\/p>\n However, Alcaraz managed to break him eventually in that game and then held his serve to lead 4-2. The Spaniard then maintained his lead to win the first set and thereby put the Canadian under pressure.<\/p>\n