NEW YORK, Sept 6 \u2014 Carlos Alcaraz believes he can capture a second consecutive U.S. Open \u200btitle after shaking off any lingering injury concerns, cruising into the quarter-finals with a high-voltage performance on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old kept rolling at Flushing Meadows, reasserting his \u200cstatus as tournament favourite with a commanding 6-4 6-3 6-4 win over American Tommy Paul, extending his Grand Slam winning \u2060streak to 18.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz had downplayed expectations in \u200bthe early rounds, with the tournament in \u2060New York marking his first competitive test since a wrist injury sidelined him for \u200cnearly five months.<\/p>\n
Now, though, the \u200cSpaniard believes he has the game to go all the way, even \u2060as enjoying every moment on court remains his guiding \u2060priority.<\/p>\n
“At the beginning of the tournament I didn’t have any expectations. I just came here to see how my body would react, especially my wrist, and above all to enjoy being back competing,” Alcaraz told reporters.<\/p>\n
“After four really good matches, now I feel capable of winning the tournament. I still have the same expectations. I \u200cstill have the same mentality of knowing that every time \u200bI step on court is a gift and it is a moment to enjoy.”<\/p>\n
The seven-times Grand Slam champion has looked increasingly comfortable with each round and has now reached the U.S. Open quarter-finals for the fifth time in six appearances.<\/p>\n
He also continued a curious pattern at the majors, with all three of his previous Grand Slam wins over Paul coming en route to the title, at Wimbledon in 2024, Roland Garros \u200bin 2025 and this year’s Australian Open.<\/p>\n
“It makes you happy when you know those things, but it \u200cdoesn’t mean anything,” \u200cAlcaraz said. “I \u2060always say there is a first time for everything, so let’s try to make sure it doesn’t happen.”<\/p>\n
“For me it is still a gift to be able to compete once again and play another quarter-final here at the U.S. Open, so I’m going to try to \u200cenjoy it and give my \u200bbest.”<\/p>\n
Alcaraz will next face either American Ben Shelton \u200cor Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas.<\/p>\n
“Both players \u2060are going to \u200bbe very difficult to play against,” Alcaraz added.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in New York; editing by \u200bLincoln Feast.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK, Sept 6 \u2014 Carlos Alcaraz believes he can capture a second consecutive U.S. Open \u200btitle after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2879,2878,2881,1796,2880,53,54,2883,2884,50,2882,28,2877,2885,2369],"class_list":["post-67780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-cars","tag-classifieds","tag-homes","tag-international","tag-jobs","tag-local","tag-news","tag-radio","tag-salt-lake","tag-sports","tag-television","tag-tennis","tag-traffic","tag-utah","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}