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The title of the Indian Wells Tournament, the first of a thousand points for the Masters in tennis, was confined to two players who previously topped the professional rankings, the young Spaniard Carlos Alcaras II and the Russian Daniel Medvedev VI, who qualified on Saturday, March 18, 2023 for the final.
The players’ path to the title match was not easy, as Alcaras defeated Italian Yannick Sinner 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 to reach his third final in 2023, while Medvedev’s suffering was greater against American Francis Tiafoe, but he avoided a third set and settled the match. 7-5, 7-6 (7-4), thus achieving his nineteenth victory in a row.
And after the start of his season was delayed due to an injury that prevented him from playing the Australian Open, Alcaras crowned his return to the stadiums by crowning him as the champion of the Buenos Aires tournament at the expense of Britain’s Cameron Nouri, before the latter took revenge on him in the final of the Rio de Janeiro tournament.
And Alcaras returned, due to a muscle injury, from the Mexican Acapulco tournament, preferring not to take risks and prepare for the Indian Wells tournament.
And he was successful in his decision, as he reached his third final in the thousand-point Masters tournaments. Professional rankings in the absence of Serbian Novak Djokovic, against the background of not receiving the coronavirus vaccine.
And Alacaras was previously ranked last September at the top of the “ATB” classification, thus becoming the youngest player to do so in history.
However, the task will not be easy against Medvedev, who is presenting an exceptional season that led him to win the title in his past three participations in the Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai tournaments, compensating for his sudden exit from the third round of the Australian Open at the hands of American Sebastian Korda.
Medvedev has never gone beyond the fourth round in Indian Wells, but he is now standing a win away from his fifth title in the 1,000-point Masters tournament, having previously won the titles in Cincinnati and Shanghai in 2019, Paris in 2020 and Toronto in 2021.
