Italian Open 2025: Carlos Alcaraz beats Jack Draper to reach semifinals

Carlos Alcaraz continued his roller-coaster ride in Rome and reached the semifinals of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia by beating Jack Draper in straight sets on Wednesday. The Spaniard defeated Draper 6-4, 6-4 at the clay ATP Masters 1000. Alcaraz returned from 2-4 down to win the first set on the Campo Central. He then lost an early break lead in the second set but held on to win the quarterfinal in a match that lasted one hour, 38 minutes.

As well as staying on track for his second Masters 1000 trophy of the year (after Monte-Carlo), Alcaraz's win against Draper ensured he would move ahead of Alexander Zverev to No. 2 in the ATP rankings on Monday. It will also secure the 22-year-old a spot as the second seed for the upcoming Roland Garros, where he is the defending champion.

Being the second seed, Alcaraz will face world No. 1 Jannik Sinner in the draw for the clay major. In his second visit, he gets to the Rome semifinal for the first time with his tour-leading 28th win for 2025. Waiting for him in the semifinal is either defending champion and second seed Zverev or hometown favourite Lorenzo Musetti.

Just like in his last two contests versus Laslo Djere and Karen Khachanov, Alcaraz had a performance versus Draper that went wildly up and down between shots of brilliance and errant shots, letting his opponent out of tricky spots.

The third-seeded Spaniard finished the match hitting 24 winners to Draper's eight, a score that was far more than his 29 unforced errors compared to his opponent's 18. Alcaraz also made the most of his chances to break back, converting all four break points he earned in the match, according to Infosys ATP Stats. After beating Draper in the pair's first tour-level clash on clay, Alcaraz leads the lefty 4-2 in the ATP head-to-head series.

Draper would have overtaken Taylor Fritz to fourth in the ATP Live Rankings had he beaten Alcaraz on Wednesday. Despite his defeat, he could take another impressive step forward in his career on clay. He won just nine tour-level matches on the surface before 2025, but has now doubled that number after reaching the second round in Monte-Carlo, the final in Madrid and the quarter-finals in Rome.