Carlos Alcaraz reveals he ‘felt like 13 years old’ in Miami Open defeat

Carlos Alcaraz has seen his sunshine double bid come to an end at the hands of Grigor Dimitrov, leaving the Spaniard with ‘a lot of frustrations’.

Alcaraz was on a nine-match winning streak heading into the quarter-final against Dimitrov, in a bid to become only the eighth man in history to win Indian Wells and the Miami Open in the same year.

However, Dimitrov beat the world No.2, 6-2 6-4, to move into the Miami Open semi-final for the first time in his career.

The Bulgarian revealed after the match that he focussed on simplifying his game against Alcaraz, “I think overall to win against him you have to play at your best, that’s just how it is. I came into the match very focused and I think extremely clear what I had to do.”

Dimitrov continued, “Sometimes simplicity is genius. It’s very, very hard to do it, especially when you play against an opponent like that, but I was really able to dictate the game, read the game a little bit better than last time. Overall, I think a very great match on my end and I’m just happy I finished in straight sets.”

It is the second consecutive meeting where Dimitrov has got the better of Alcaraz, having also beaten him at the Shanghai Masters in October last year.

And Alcaraz suggested that he was left feeling clueless as of what to do, “I left the court thinking that probably I had to change my game a little bit earlier. But anyway I felt like I played good tennis, not perfect but good tennis. But I feel a lot of frustrations right now because he made me feel like I’m 13 years old.

“It was crazy, I was talking to my team, I don’t know what I have to do. I don’t know his weakness, I don’t know anything. That’s why I have frustration right now. But you know I left the court happy with my tennis.”

"He made me feel like I was 13. It was crazy.
I was talking to my team saying I didn't know what I should do. I didn't find his weaknesses. I didn't know anything."

Carlos Alcaraz after his defeat against Grigor Dimitrov ????pic.twitter.com/AMXHkQZVKU

— We Are Tennis (@WeAreTennis) March 29, 2024

Dimitrov will look to reach the Miami Open final for the first time in his career later today, when he takes on fourth seed Alexander Zverev.

For Alcaraz, he will now turn his attention back to the clay and will next compete at the Monte Carlo Masters that begin on Sunday 7th April.

Inside the baseline…

It was a really impressive performance from Grigor Dimitrov, who seems to have Carlos Alcaraz’s number in recent meetings. Despite this, it can only be seen as a good sunshine double for Alcaraz, who was relatively out of form heading into Indian Wells and had not won a title since Wimbledon. It will be intriguing to see if Dimitrov can back up this win against a very different type of player in Alexander Zverev, who he has an overwhelmingly negative head-to-head with.

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