Alcaraz overcomes rain to gain revenge on Paul in Cincinnati

CINCINNATI: Carlos Alcaraz withstood a string of frustrating rain delays to beat Tommy Paul 7-6 (8/6), 6-7 (7/0) 6-3 on Thursday, avenging a loss to the American last week and reaching the quarterfinals of the ATP/WTA Cincinnati Open.

Paul was unable to repeat his sensational upset of the world No. 1 from last Friday in Toronto, where he stunned the Spaniard in the quarterfinals.

Alcaraz had squandered three match points before the first of a string of rain delays that forced players off and on the court in a logistics ballet that finally ended after more than three hours.

But he held on to book a quarterfinal meeting with Australian Max Purcell, a 6-4, 6-2 winner over Swiss Stan Wawrinka.

After the final rain pause, Alcaraz, up a break in the third, came out and finished off the final few points, advancing with 40 winners and 61 unforced errors.

“I really wanted to win after what happened against him last week.

Alcaraz is into his fifth Masters 1000 quarterfinal this season and his 11th overall. He improved to 21-3 in the elite series this season, standing 51-5 overall.

Alcaraz applied the pressure and brought out the best of his big game to tame Paul in a contest first interrupted at 4-3 in the deciding set by the weather.

The top seed came back from a break down four times in the first two sets, but he couldn’t put it away when he had three opportunities in the 12th game of the second set.

The 15-minute game saw Paul launch his fightback. He then dominated the tiebreaker, winning the last nine points of the set to square the contest after two and a half hours.

A brief rain pause after the fifth game became a full-fledged suspension with Alcaraz up a break and serving at 4-3.

A frustrating stop-start