With a straight-sets win over Alex de Minaur, top seed Carlos Alcaraz advanced to the Barcelona Open semi-finals.
Spanish fifth seed De Minaur defeated Australian seventh seed 7-5, 6-3, in an hour and 40 minutes.
After Stefanos Tsitipas retired hurt in just the third game of their match, the world number two will now face Frenchman Arthur Fils.
Alcaraz won the Monte Carlo title last week after defeating world number 14 Fils, who is 20 years old, in three sets.
Alcaraz broke the decisive break in the 12th game of the first set against De Minaur before recovering and making the decisive break.
The 21-year-old broke only once in the sixth game with his serve in the second set, which was more dominant.
Alcaraz said, “I was struggling a little bit mentally with the serve, and I started quite badly with it.”
“I think I improved significantly after the first few games with my serve,” he said. I began to think positively once more and sat down. The first set was extremely tight, and Alex aggressively started playing.
I’m so happy I won the first set, and I’m so happy I played some fantastic tennis in the second.
At the conclusion of the second game, four-time runner-up Tsitipas appeared uneasy right off the bat against Fils, who was then taken for an off-court evaluation.
He retired while 0-2, 30-40, and returned with only five more points.
In each set, the defending champion and second-seeded Ruud was broken by the 13-year-old world number 13 Rune.
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Source: BBC
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