‘He made me feel like I’m 13 years old’

MIAMI: World number two Carlos Alcaraz said he felt like a frustrated 13-year-old searching for answers after his crushing defeat by Bulgarian veteran Grigor Dimitrov in the Miami Open quarter-finals on Thursday.

Alcaraz, 20, arrived in Miami in top form after winning the Indian Wells trophy, but his hopes of becoming the first man to complete the Sunshine Double since Roger Federer in 2017 were dashed in a 6-2 6-4 defeat.

It was the Spaniard’s second consecutive defeat by the 32-year-old Dimitrov following last year’s three-sets loss in the Shanghai Masters. “He played amazing tennis, almost perfect. I couldn’t find solutions. I couldn’t find a way to make him feel uncomfortable on the court. It was a great game from his side,” Alcaraz said.

“I left the court thinking that probably I had to change my game a little bit earlier, but anyway, I feel like I played good tennis. Not perfect but good.

“But I have a lot of frustrations right now, because he made me feel like I’m 13 years old. It was crazy. I was talking to my team saying that I don’t know what I have to do. I don’t know his weakness. I don’t know anything.”