Alcaraz crashes out of Madrid

MADRID - Second-seeded Carlos Alcaraz saw his title defence and 14-match winning streak in Madrid come to an end at the hands of Andrey Rublev in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Rublev upset home favourite Alcaraz 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to reach the semi-finals.

The seventh-seeded Rublev had lost his last five matches against top-three opposition and was 0-1 head-to-head against Alcaraz coming into the contest.

He was also on a four-match losing streak heading into the Madrid Open.

All that seemed like a distant memory in the quarter-finals against Alcaraz as Rublev maximised on his powerful brand of tennis to shock the Spanish world number three and reach the semi-finals at a seventh different Masters 1000 tournament, from a full set of nine.

Alcaraz missed the clay-court tournaments in Monte Carlo and Barcelona last month due to a forearm injury and needed a third-set tiebreak to squeeze past last year's finalist Jan-Lennard Struff in the fourth round on Tuesday.

He couldn't hold off an inspired Rublev though, his quest to become the first man to win three consecutive titles in Madrid coming to a crashing halt.

"I think the key was that I think it was one of my first matches that I was completely calm all the match, I didn't say one word, even if I was losing," said Rublev, who now owns at least one victory against each of the current world's top 10.

Alcaraz played a convincing first set, breaking serve in the fifth game en route to a 41-minute lead. But Rublev brought his A-game to take the next two sets and finished the match in just under two hours, firing 30 winners along the way.

He will face Taylor Fritz in the semi-finals after the American clinched a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 win over Francisco Cerundolo.

Alcaraz says it has been a positive week in Madrid overall but admits he is still thinking about his forearm, whether it is painful or not.