Up-and-coming Belgian Alexander Blockx ended the title defence of Casper Ruud on Thursday by defeating the former world number two 6-4, 6-4 to set up a Madrid Open semi-final against Alexander Zverev, while Mirra Andreeva booked her spot in the women’s final.
Blockx, 21, who broke into the top 100 for the first time last month and is at a career-high 69 in the world, has knocked out four consecutive seeds, including third-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime, en route to the final four.
Blockx is through to his first tour-level semi-final and is the first Belgian man in tournament history to make it this far at the Madrid Open.
Prior to this month, he had never won a tour-level match on clay. He now enters the semi-finals with a 10-2 mark on the red dirt through qualifying and main draw matches at ATP level.
“To be honest, I don’t know, I’m just happy being here. Even winning my first match here, I barely escaped in the first round,” said Blockx in his on-court interview.
“I was happy about that already, but semi-finals is something I wouldn’t have even dreamed of to begin with. I’m proud with how I’m playing the last couple of matches.”
Blockx drew first blood, breaking in game three en route to a 3-1 lead.
Norwegian Ruud began dictating with his forehand and closed the gap to level for 4-4 but Blockx was unfazed and struck again to regain his advantage and he secured the set on his fourth opportunity after 51 minutes of play.
‘So much adrenaline’
Blockx made his move in the seventh game of set number two to carve a 5-3 opening and after squandering two match points on Ruud’s serve, he closed it out on his own serve to secure the win in 96 minutes.
Ruud committed 17 unforced forehand errors during the match and will drop out of the top 20 for the first time since May 2021 when the new rankings are released next week.
“I found it depressing this game, because he didn’t have really any weaknesses,” Ruud said after the match.
The three-time Grand Slam finalist revealed he had been dealing with a calf issue since Monte Carlo and is happy with how his leg held up this fortnight in the Spanish capital.
Two-time Madrid champion Zverev reached a seventh semi-final from his last eight Masters 1000 tournaments with a 6-1, 6-4 win against Italian 10th seed Flavio Cobolli, who beat the German en route to the Munich final 12 days ago.
Meanwhile, Andreeva’s remarkable clay-court campaign continued with a strong 6-4, 7-6 (10/8) performance against Aryna Sabalenka’s conqueror Hailey Baptiste, which sent the Russian into her first Madrid final.
The ninth-seeded Andreeva is 12-1 on clay so far this season, with a title run in Linz, a semi-final showing in Stuttgart and now a final appearance in Madrid, where she awaits Anastasia Potapova or Marta Kostyuk.
Andreeva was broken while serving for the match at 5-4 as Baptiste forced a tiebreak and saved three set points before the Russian wrapped up the win in one hour and 39 minutes.
“Honestly, I feel so much adrenaline inside. I feel like I’m still nervous. I’m just so happy that I won and that I was able to save all those set points,” said Andreeva, who won 81 percent of her first-serve points.
“The serve helped me a lot. I’m so, so happy, I cannot really find ways to describe what I’m feeling right now.”
Baptiste had a stellar run in Madrid with two top-10 victories over Jasmine Paolini and top-ranked Sabalenka, which will earn the 24-year-old American a top-30 debut next week.
Andreeva, who turned 19 on Wednesday, is the second-youngest finalist in tournament history, behind only Caroline Wozniacki. She is the first teenager to reach three WTA 1000 finals and will be targeting a third trophy at this level on Saturday, having won Dubai and Indian Wells last year.
AFP
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