MADRID (AP) \u2014 Alexander Blockx ‘s dream run in Madrid continues.<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old emerging talent from Belgium defeated defending champion Casper Ruud 6-4, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Open on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The 69th-ranked Blockx had not won an ATP Tour match on clay before his third-round run in Monte Carlo three weeks ago. He’s also defeated third-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime and Francisco Cerundolo on his way to the last four in the Spanish capital.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, I\u2019m just happy with being here,\u201d Blockx said. \u201cEven winning my first match here. I barely escaped in the first round and I was happy about that already. Semifinals is something I wouldn\u2019t have even dreamed of to begin with.”<\/p>\n
Blockx became the fourth lowest-ranked player to reach the semifinals in Madrid, according to the ATP. He is the second man born in 2005 or later to reach the last four at a Masters 1000 after Jakub Mensik, who won in Miami in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of how I\u2019ve played these past couple of matches,\u201d Blockx said. \u201cThe conditions suit me well here. I feel like it\u2019s clay which is slow, so I have time to settle and hit my shots, go for my shots. At the same time, it\u2019s quite fast with the altitude and the heat sometimes. It\u2019s the perfect combination for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blockx is 4-2 against top 20 opponents, with all four of his wins coming this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought from the first game I was hitting my ball quite well, and I made (lots of) returns,\u201d he said. “Once I got my first game, I was really into the match.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the loss, Rudd will leave the top 20 for the first time since May 2021.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MADRID (AP) \u2014 Alexander Blockx ‘s dream run in Madrid continues. The 21-year-old emerging talent from Belgium defeated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1528,1527,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-14629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-madrid","8":"tag-ap-sports","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-madrid"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}