Table of Contents
ATP Tournament in Miami, Final, Sunday, 03.04.2022
The final of the Miami Open will be a real surprise! Because in the duel of the youngsters, two players face each other who probably nobody would have expected at this point – especially not the Spaniard.
Teenager Carlos Alcaraz could win his first ATP 1000 tournament ever against Casper Ruud.
In my tip for this thrilling final, I will go into why I – like the bookmakers – seriously believe in a victory for the passionate Nadal successor!
What an atmospheric semi-final it was between Hukarcz and Alcaraz, who returned a superb serve right at the feet of the Pole in the first tie-break, forcing him into an unexpected error.
This point, by the way, was the set point, which the youngster acknowledged with a cheering gesture reminiscent of Rafael Nadal, while the sold-out stadium applauded frenetically all around.
It was easy to see from this scene who was the local hero on this day! And so the 18-year-old managed to win the second set in a tie-break – cheered on by the crowd.
Alcaraz’s style of play is also reminiscent of Rafael Nadal: hard baseline strokes, good angles and, of course, the two-handed backhand – and even if he still lacks experience, he makes up for this shortcoming with a great deal of passion.
Alcaraz has already celebrated the greatest success of his career by simply reaching the final. Until recently, that was an overall victory at the ATP 500 tournament in Rio de Janeiro in February 2022, one of two tournament wins for the Spaniard so far.
It was precisely during this triumph in Brazil two months ago that the 16th-ranked player in the world was able to prove to the whole world what a huge talent he is.
Even then, he attracted attention with victories in the semi-finals over Fabio Fognini (6:2, 7:5) and clay court specialist Diego Schwartzman (6:4, 6:2). But just one month later, he seems to have gone one better.
It should not be forgotten that the Spaniard already played an excellent tournament in Indian Wells and was only stopped in the semi-finals by his compatriot Rafael Nadal of all people in three sets.
This is where Alcaraz already differs from his upcoming opponent. After all, Indian Wells and Miami are two tournaments that take place back-to-back and are not skipped by most ATP players.
Casper Ruud also competed in Indian Wells, but was knocked out early against “Bad Boy” Nick Kyrgios. In Florida, however, things went much better and with the victory over Alexander Zverev, the Scandinavian even managed to get rid of the world number 4.
In the semi-finals, the Norwegian certainly had an easier draw than the Spaniard in Francisco Cerundolo. The Argentinean is also an unknown quantity, who completely lost his rhythm after the first set (4:6).
My Alcaraz Ruud tip
Of Casper Ruud, it is to be expected that he will try to get his service through by means of his hard serves. The Spaniard does not have the best serve on the ATP, but in the semifinals he already pulled the teeth of another service machine.
Hurkacz made an incredible 13 aces and scored 81% of the time on his first serve. The fact that he still couldn’t bring the teenager to his knees has to do with his baseline game and nerves of steel.
Because apart from the fact that Alcaraz was able to place wonderful shots from behind the line, he distinguished himself in the match against the Pole by winning 70% of the points on his second serve.
This shows how strong the Spaniard is from the game. For although the tempo is clearly taken out on the second service, he was still able to win many of these rallies. At the same time, he also scored more often than Hurkacz whenever the latter had to resort to his 2nd serve (55%).
My Alcaraz Ruud tip: The Spaniard will be the youngest player ever to win this tournament!
