Carlos Alcaraz embodied his status as world number one and left no option to Pablo Carreño in the Spanish duel of the Basel tournament which placed the Murcian in the semi-finals which he will face the Canadian Félix Auger Aliassime who s was previously cleared of Kazakh Alexandre Bublik.

Like a few months ago during the Barcelona tournament, Alcaraz eliminated his friend Carreño in two sets: 6-3 and 6-4, in one hour and 38 minutes of play.

These will be the first semi-finals for the tennis player from El Palmar since settling at the top of the circuit after winning the US Open, the fifth title so far this year for the Murcian with the Masters 1000 in Madrid and Miami and the tournaments in Barcelona and Rio de Janeiro. He completes his prize list with that of Umag, last year, the first of his career.

It took Alcaraz an hour and 41 minutes to duel with Carreño, this season’s Canadian Masters 1000 champion, his seventh trophy and his greatest success with Olympic bronze at Tokyo 2020.

The number one who broke Carreño’s serve in the fourth game maintained a flawless run in the first set, maintained the imbalance and gained the advantage on the scoreboard. The next set started better for Alcaraz as they were leading 2-0 but their rival reacted and in the fourth he broke the Murcian’s serve for the first time and managed to balance the situation.

But the big favorite got another break at the right time, in the ninth game. He got 5-4 then consolidated to close out the win and move closer to the title.

Carlos Alcaraz will face Canadian Felix Auger Aliassime, seeded third and one of the hottest players around, in the semi-finals.

The champion of recent weeks in Florence and Antwerp, who has eleven straight wins, beat Uzbek Alexander Bublik 6-2, 6-3