Carlos Alcaraz will take almost all the spotlight on day 8 of the Mutua Madrid Open. The Spaniard, like all the tennis players remaining in the lower part of the men’s main draw, will be called to return to the court immediately after the battle of the round of 16 won in about three hours of play against Jan-Lennard Struff, who ruined his life really difficult and forced him to play a very tense tie-break in the third set.
Not before 4pm, the now ‘privileged’ time occupied by the Iberians throughout the tournament, the world number 3 will have to face Andrey Rublev. The Russian seems to have put a very negative period of results behind him, returning to qualify for the quarterfinals of a Master 1000.
Now a rather complicated task for the Moscow native, opposed to a confident player who will once again be pushed by the warmth of the home crowd. The two will compete for the first time on clay: the last and only precedent dates back to the last Finals in Turin, in which Carlitos won in two sets.
The other quarter has been scheduled by the organizers starting from around 9.30 am: the match will feature the American Taylor Fritz and the Argentine Francisco Cerundolo, fresh from a good victory over Sascha Zverev.
The two women’s quarters planned
An all-Kazakh derby will open the calendar of matches on the central court named after Manolo Santana. Elena Rybakina, number 4 in the seeding, will have to deal with her compatriot Putintseva from 12.
The evening session, at 8pm, saw the highly anticipated match between the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka and the very young Mirra Andreeva, truly inspired in this Spanish competition. While Jannik Sinner, like the rest of the athletes located in the upper part, will have a day of rest before playing his quarter-final, Italy is present in the playing order in the doubles: Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori will battle Aslan Karatsev and Zhizhen Zhang to secure a place in the quarterfinals of the event.
Here is the complete program for Wednesday 1 May in Madrid.
