No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka overpowered No.9 seed Maria Sakkari, 6-4, 6-1 in the semifinals on Thursday to advance to the final at the Madrid Open for the second time in the past three years, here.
The Tuesday morning session at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was not a good one for Russian seeds Danil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, who both crashed out of the tournament in straight-set defeats in the Round of 16.
In Madrid, the Spanish teenager defeated Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic back-to-back before thrashing Alexander Zverev in the final on Sunday for his fourth title of the year.
The 34-year-old Serbian was aiming to reach a record-extending 55th ATP Masters 1000 final, but was unable to overcome the 19-year-old Alcaraz, who will try and win his second Masters 1000 crown on Sunday against the world No. 3 Zverev.
Djokovic struck the ball with relentless depth, accuracy and power as he controlled points with his watertight groundstrokes to advance after 78 minutes and improve his perfect ATP Head-to-Head series record against Hurkacz to 4-0.
The 19-year-old Spaniard withstood a trademark Nadal fightback and registered a 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 win in an absorbing two-hour, 29-minute quarterfinal encounter of the ATP Masters 1000 event in the Spanish capital.
On his return to action after six weeks out with a rib injury, the Spanish third seed raced away with the first set, but he had to work much harder in the second set as Kecmanovic reacted well.
It was a completely transformed Andy Murray, who had won just eight games across three sets at Wimbledon against Shapovalov, as the former world No. 1 went about taking sweet revenge against his higher-rated Canadian opponent.
Following Jabeur's victory, Halep defeated American teenager Coco Gauff for the second time this year at a WTA 1000.
With the victory, Murray improves to 8-1 in first-round matches on the year. He next faces 14th seed Denis Shapovalov, who squeezed past lucky loser Ugo Humbert of France, 7-6(1), 6-3.
