Confronting a brief tennis tempest at 2-5 today, Alcaraz rode a wave of winners to reach his second straight Doha quarterfinal.<\/p>\n
World No. 1 Alcaraz reeled off five games in a row subduing Valentin Royer 6-2, 7-5.<\/p>\n
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It is Alcaraz\u2019s ninth straight win and vaults him into his 55th quarterfinal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Seventeen days after Alcaraz powered past Novak Djokovic 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, 7-5 to capture his first AO championship and make history as the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam 16 days ago, he continues to tame all challengers.<\/p>\n
Since last April, Alcaraz has won 64 of 69 matches, including a perfect 27-0 on outdoor hard courts, that included a streak of 11 finals in 12 tournaments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old Spaniard will face Karen Khachanov for a spot in the Qatar ExxonMobil Open semifinals.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the seventh-seeded Khachanov cranked seven aces and saved five of six break points topping Marton Fucsovics 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. It is Khachanov\u2019s first Tour-level quarterfinal since he advanced to the Toronto final last August losing to Ben Shelton.<\/p>\n
The 2024 Doha champion Khachanov is winless in five prior meetings against Alcaraz. In their most recent clash at the 2025 Rome round of 16, Alcaraz prevailed 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.<\/p>\n
Facing former junior opponent Royer for the first time as a pro today, Alcaraz lunged for a full-stretch forehand volley that helped him break in the third game.<\/p>\n
Denying a pair of break points, including whipping an inside-out forehand winner on the second break point, Alcaraz slid an ace down the T to consolidate for 3-1.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz broke again for 5-2. Serving for the set, the Spaniard swooped forward, guessed right on a pair of passes and knocked off successive forehand volleys to close the 36-minute opening set.<\/p>\n
Though Royer carried a meager 1-5 record on the season into this clash, he delivered a level of tennis far higher than his current rank of No. 60 in the second set.<\/p>\n
Stepping into his groundstrokes, Royer frequently went toe-to-toe with Alcaraz in some crackling baseline exchanges early in the second set.<\/p>\n
A solid strike and fortuitous fall helped Royer register the first break of the second set. Royer bolted a backhand return into the top of the tape and the ball dribbled over on Alcaraz\u2019s side of the court giving the Frenchman the break and a 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n
Royer erased a break point when Alcaraz sailed a forehand wide. The world No. 60 backed up the break extending his lead to 4-1. Alcaraz climbed out of a Love-30 hole to hold in the sixth game before Royer stamped a solid hold at 30 for 5-2.<\/p>\n
Serving for the second set, Royer tried to attack but paid the price as Alcaraz zapped a forehand pass crosscourt. Two points later, Alcaraz drilled a diagonal forehand winner for triple break point.<\/p>\n
The seven-time Grand Slam champion hammered heavy forehands to break for 4-5. A sharp Alcaraz won 12 of 14 points to level at 5-all.<\/p>\n
Stepping into a backhand bolt, Alcaras spun a pass for his second straight break for a 6-5 lead. Firing his 17th forehand winner of the day helped Alcaraz close in 95 minutes, raising his 2026 record to 9-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Richard Pagliaro | Wednesday, February 18, 2026Photo credit: Tennis TV Screen Shot Carlos Alcaraz cast lines with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-483777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}