Alcaraz had never gone past the Melbourne quarter-finals before this year, but the 22-year-old looks well placed to win the title and become the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz replaced Sinner at the top of the world rankings with his US Open success in September, producing a level over the fortnight that most observers considered the best of his career.<\/p>\n
The six-time major champion says his performances so far at Melbourne Park have been “pretty close” to that standard.<\/p>\n
The manner in which he destroyed Australian sixth seed Alex de Minaur in the quarter-finals – leaning into his greater explosive power and defter touch – was a brutal illustration of how far ahead Alcaraz and Sinner are.<\/p>\n
It was also reminder of the emphasis which Alcaraz has put on improving his concentration during matches.<\/p>\n
“Not having up and downs in matches has been one of the main goals for me,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’m just trying to play the same level and having the same concentration point after point after point.”<\/p>\n
Zverev has proved an awkward match-up for Alcaraz, with the pair evenly splitting their 12 previous meetings.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old’s giant serve remains his biggest weapon and it has particularly excelled during his wins over Alcaraz.<\/p>\n
It has also been key to Zverev’s progress in Melbourne – along with being fully fit – as he looks to reach the final for the second successive year.<\/p>\n
Zverev has lost all three of his Grand Slam finals and has often been accused of being too passive in the biggest matches.<\/p>\n
“I’ve worked on my aggressive game. I’ve worked on my first shots after the serve, my first forehand after the serve, maybe a bit more serve and volleying,” he said after beating Learner Tien in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
“If those things work for me, then I think success will come.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alcaraz had never gone past the Melbourne quarter-finals before this year, but the 22-year-old looks well placed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-437227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}