Casper Ruud and Carlos Alcaraz reached the Miami Open Final after winning their respective semifinals against Francisco Cerundolo and Hubert Hurkacz.
Casper Ruud reached his first ATP Masters 1000 final after ending Francisco Cerundolo’s dream run in the tournament.
The Norwegian held a 0-3 record in semi-finals at Masters 1000 level heading into his match against World No. 103 but the sixth seed produced an aggressive and consistent display on Hard Rock Stadium to ensure he would not fall at the penultimate stage again, triumphing 6-4, 6-1 after one hour and 34 minutes.
The World No. 8 used all of his big-match experience to his advantage against Cerundolo, who was making his Masters 1000 debut this week.
Despite the loss, Cerundolo enjoyed a fairytale journey in Miami. The 23-year-old overcame Tallon Griekspoor, Reilly Opelka (second-set retirement), Gael Monfils, Frances Tiafoe and Jannik Sinner (first-set retirement) en route to the last four.
However, Ruud outplayed Cerundolo in the crucial moments in their first ATP meeting, pulling Cerundolo from corner to corner as he broke four times to seal victory.
Ruud, who earned the biggest win of his career by ATP Ranking when he eliminated World No. 4 Alexander Zverev 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 to reach the last four, will face Carlos Alcaraz in the Miami Open Final.
Carlos Alcaraz, meanwhile, ended the defending champion Hubert Hurkacz’s 10 match tournament winning streak, in straight sets to reach the Miami Open Final.
His 7-6(5), 7-6(2) victory takes the Spaniard to the biggest stage of his young career, one better than his semi-final run at Indian Wells two weeks ago.
In a match that did not see a break of serve, both men saved three break points, with each coming up clutch to fight off a pair when serving at 5-all.
Alcaraz trailed 3/5 in the opening-set tie-break, but repeated his heroics from his quarter-final victory by winning four straight points to close it out.
After erasing two break points at 5-all in the second set, Alcaraz controlled the second tie-break with help from some untimely Hurkacz errors.
After setting up match point with a drop shot at 5/2 a dipping pass attempt forced a volley into the net by Hurkacz to give the Spaniard his first opportunity at an ATP 1000 title.
Hubert Hurkacz had another brilliant run at this year’s Miami Open with the Pole preventing Daniil Medvedev from reclaiming the world no.1 slot being his biggest contribution.
