Alcaraz meets again in the round of 16 in Vienna with a rival on a roll after coming out of hell

This Wednesday, Carlos Alcaraz had a day of fine-tuning his tennis on the indoor hard-court courts of the ATP 500 tournament in Vienna, which he had previously only played in 2021, when he reached the semifinals. At the moment he has his sights set on Thursday’s round of 16, after having learned the identity of his rival the previous afternoon.

There will be no Davis Cup morbidity or home court factor, since the local Jurij Rodionov was eliminated. They will be enemies in the Spain-Austria quarterfinal tie, on Thursday, November 26 in Bologna.

Rodionov bowed down to the Georgian Nikoloz Basilashvili, 34 years old and world number 95, who won 7-6 (3) and 6-1. A veteran tennis player who is once again in the top positions of the tournament, who is living a second career from hell. The appointment with Alcaraz is no earlier than 3 in the afternoon, after the Cameron Norrie-Daniil Medvedev which opens at 1:30 p.m.

A delicate domestic matter, with a trial closely followed in his country, put Basilasvhili in a lot of trouble, who came out of the judicial issue with his wife well and recovered his tennis after a long time of grinding in lower-category tournaments. In March 2024 he was ranked 1,086 in the ATP rankings. It entered the top-100 again a year ago.

He lived his best moments when he reached number 16 in 2019. In that version he met Carlos Alcaraz, his executioner twice, both on clay: 6-3 and 7-5 in Madrid 2022 and a resounding 6-4, 6-2 and 6-4 at Roland Garros 2021.

Alcaraz has become a historic champion since then, Basilashvili has returned to a positive streak. The previous week he made the final in Almaty, before reaching the semis in Chengdu. They have won 14 of their last 17 games.

After the piecework against Khachanov, Alcaraz will deal with a very linear tennis player, based on power, hitting the ball the harder the better, without calibrating the risk.