Carlos Alcaraz earned an impressive victory against an in-form Jack Draper in the 2025 Italian Open quarter-finals \u2014 and it could have big implications.<\/p>\n
The four-time major champion defeated world No 5 Draper 6-4, 6-4 on Centre Court at the Foro Italico.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz<\/a> came back from 2-4 down in the opening set and saved six of the eight break points he faced against the 23-year-old Brit.<\/p>\n The Spaniard avenged his painful three-set semi-final loss to Draper in Indian Wells in March \u2014 and he now leads the head-to-head series 4-2.<\/p>\n By reaching his maiden semi-final in Rome, Alcaraz has ensured\u00a0he will reclaim the world No 2 position from Alexander Zverev after the tournament.<\/p>\n The 21-year-old has a 955 point lead over Zverev \u2014 who is the reigning Italian Open champion \u2014 in the Live ATP Rankings.<\/p>\n Alcaraz\u2019s imminent return to second in the rankings is significant as it means he is guaranteed to be the No 2 seed at the French Open.<\/p>\n Therefore, Alcaraz will not face world No 1 Jannik Sinner before the final at Roland Garros, which could improve his chances as he looks to defend his crown in Paris.<\/p>\n Speaking to the media after beating Draper, Alcaraz gave his reaction to securing a top two seeding for the clay-court Grand Slam.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s great being second seed in Roland Garros, knowing that I\u2019m going to not see Jannik before the final, if I reach it, I think it\u2019s great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something that I didn\u2019t think about it, honestly. Before coming here, the No 1, it wasn\u2019t a goal. Knowing that, it\u2019s a great thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz improves astonishing record only Bjorn Borg has bettered<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n The 9 active players to reach quarter-finals at every Masters 1000 event: Alcaraz emulates Djokovic<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Alcaraz added: \u201cI think the most important thing that I did today was not thinking about the shots at all.<\/p>\n \u201cNot thinking about the fact that I was down, just trying to do the things that make me happy. On court, I just tried to be aggressive, play good shots, drop shots, go to the net. That\u2019s what I like to do on the court, and I think that made the difference today.<\/p>\n \u201cI played such a high rhythm during the whole match that I didn\u2019t let him dominate or stay long in the rallies. I think that was a really good win today for me, and I\u2019m just really proud about the way I approached the match.<\/p>\n \u201cI just feel that I play great tennis on clay. I started the clay season really well. Obviously, it was sad that I got injured after Barcelona, but it\u2019s always difficult to be in shape for the whole swing.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just excited to keep it going and try to compete as well as I can. I\u2019m just happy to feel the good rhythm, feel the good tennis again here in Rome, and obviously this match has given me a lot of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n Alcaraz will face either Zverev or Lorenzo Musetti in the last four at the Masters 1000 tournament.<\/p>\n Draper had the chance to climb to a new career-high ranking of world No 4 by beating Alcaraz, which would have seen him clinch a top four seeding spot at the French Open.<\/p>\n The world No 5 has narrowly missed out, though, as he remains just 15 points adrift of fourth-ranked Taylor Fritz.<\/p>\n READ NEXT:\u00a0Carlos Alcaraz joins Rafael Nadal among youngest players to reach all nine Masters 1000 quarter-finals<\/a> The post Carlos Alcaraz clinches huge rankings boost\u00a0as Jack Draper falls short of key milestone<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carlos Alcaraz earned an impressive victory against an in-form Jack Draper in the 2025 Italian Open quarter-finals \u2014 and it could have big implications. The four-time major champion defeated world No 5 Draper 6-4, 6-4 on Centre Court at the Foro Italico. Alcaraz came back from 2-4 down in the opening set and saved six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}ATP Tour News<\/h2>\n
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