Carlos Alcaraz defeats Stefanos Tsitsipas to defend Barcelona Open title

Carlos Alcaraz’s first successful title defense comes in his home country, Spain. The 19-year-old phenom defeated World-No. 5 Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets to earn his title as reigning champion of the Barcelona Open.

While Carlos Alcaraz got the job done in two sets, it was two sets of high-class tennis. Stefanos Tsitsipas was not going down without a fight, the match lasted nearly 80 minutes.

The Spaniard had his serve broken very quickly in the opening set of the match, giving Tsitsipas an early 2-1 lead. After that, Alcaraz went on to win five of the next six games to take the first set 6-3.

After overcoming the early scare, Carlos Alcaraz was locked in. He did a spectacular job of holding his serve, winning 79 percent of his service points throughout the match. On the return, Alcaraz continues to show his ability to cover every inch of the court.

The No. 2-ranked player in the world was able to continue his winning ways against Stefanos Tsitsipas, improving to 4-0 in their head-to-head matchups.

Carlos Alcaraz dominates in first ATP title defense

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While Alcaraz has enjoyed success against Tsitsipas specifically throughout his career, he has also been handling the rest of the competition as well. He has now won 23 of his 25 matches in 2023.

Remarkably, the young man is only 19. The sky is the limit for him as he continues to try to cement himself as one of the greatest tennis players to ever live. He now has three ATP tour titles in 2023 and nine total in his ATP career.

Carlos Alcaraz seems to have embraced the celebratory tradition at the Barcelona Open. The champion jumps into the pool epically along with all the ball kids to commemorate the victory.

After an injury-riddle start to the season, Carlos Alcaraz regained his form early in the clay-court portion of 2023. He defeated the likes of Nuno Borges, Roberto Bautista Agut, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, and Daniel Evans before handling Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Final.

Now that Carlos Alcaraz has completed his first successful title defense, he will look to keep the momentum going in the 2023 Madrid Open. He defeated World No. 6 Alexander Zverev in last year’s Madrid Open Final.

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