Alcaraz Reaches Tokyo Semi-Finals

Carlos Alcaraz reached the semi-finals of the Japan Open on Sunday, 4 October, when Canada’s Denis Shapovalov retired injured with Alcaraz leading 7⁠–⁠6(3), 2⁠–⁠1 (AFP; The Canadian Press / TSN). The quarter-final, at the Ariake tennis grounds in Tokyo, had lasted 82 minutes (ATP Tour).

The Japan Open, styled this week as the Kinoshita Group Japan Open, is an ATP 500, a men’s tournament a step below the Masters events and the four Grand Slams. A retirement stops the match at the score already played. Alcaraz, the defending champion, the top seed and the world No. 3, goes through to the semi-finals, the last four. Shapovalov, ranked No. 46, is out.

A set is won by the first player to six games, and he must lead by two. If the set reaches 6⁠–⁠6, they play a tiebreak, a short first-to-seven-points decider. The (3) means Alcaraz won that tiebreak seven points to three. The first set was not comfortable. It had six breaks of serve, meaning the player who was receiving won the game six times. Shapovalov led 5⁠–⁠3, then lost the edge. At 5⁠–⁠4 he had a set point on Alcaraz’s serve: one point that would have given him the set, at 30⁠–⁠40. Alcaraz saved it with a drop shot, a ball played to land short so the other man has to sprint in, and then took the tiebreak (AFP; ATP Tour). A day earlier, against Italy’s Matteo Arnaldi, Alcaraz had saved four set points and still won (AFP).

“It was a little bit frustrating with my serve. I couldn’t find a good way of serving: I was struggling almost every game on serve,” Alcaraz said afterward. He lost his own serve three times in the opening set. “But I’m just happy with the way I came back after every break. It was a great first set: Great points, great rallies” (ATP Tour). The Canadian Press had Shapovalov taking three of his four chances to break, and saving four of the seven break chances Alcaraz created.

The match ended almost as soon as the second set began. AFP reported that Shapovalov suffered an upper-right-thigh injury in the first game of that set and could not continue. Alcaraz did not pretend the ending was the one he wanted. “It’s a shame that he had to pull out,” he said. “Going through to a semi-final like this is not the way I wanted, but sometimes sports are tough. You have to accept it. Hopefully he’s going to be able to play in Shanghai healthy” (ATP Tour).

Shapovalov is 27 and from Richmond Hill, Ontario. He had reached the quarter-final by beating Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo in three sets (The Canadian Press / TSN). Alcaraz is 23. This is only his third tournament since a wrist injury kept him out for months. He is the Australian Open champion, and last month he reached the quarter-finals of the US Open (AFP). In Tokyo he has now won eight matches in a row. He first took this title in 2025, on his debut at the event (ATP Tour).

His semi-final is against another Spaniard, Jaume Munar, for a place in the final. Munar is a qualifier — he had to win preliminary matches just to enter the main draw — and he is ranked No. 64. On Sunday morning he beat France’s Kyrian Jacquet, ranked No. 86, by 6⁠–⁠4, 6⁠–⁠2. The match took an hour and 40 minutes on the hard court at Ariake, a surface with little grit, quicker than clay (ATP Tour; EFE / Última Hora). Munar, 29, from Mallorca, is into his eighth tour semi-final, and his first since Basel in October 2025. Earlier in the week he beat third seed Taylor Fritz (ATP Tour).

Alcaraz leads their series 3⁠–⁠1. Munar won the first meeting, in Marbella in 2021, and that week ended in his first ATP final. He then lost on clay in Rio de Janeiro and at the Conde de Godó in Barcelona, both in 2022. The most recent match was on grass at Queen’s, and Alcaraz won it 7⁠–⁠5 in the third set. The Tokyo semi-final is the first time they will play on a fast hard court (EFE / Última Hora; ATP Tour). After beating Jacquet, Munar tossed balls to the stands and called the local crowd “fantastic” (EFE / Última Hora).

He is one match from the final because the man across the net could not play on. The semi-final against Munar had not been played when this page was written.