That’s entertainment: Carlos Alcaraz dazzles again in French Open

Sebastian Korda was the latest victim as Alcaraz’s joyride continued into the fourth round Friday at the French Open in Paris. The No. 3 seed defeated Korda, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, in a fun, fizzy match flecked through with shots so cool from both parties they made you want to spring to your feet. Alcaraz pumped his fist and stared at his team in the stands after each one.

He finished with 38 winners to Korda’s 20, with 17 of them coming on the supposedly stickier forehand side.

Entering the tournament, Alcaraz said the injured right forearm that derailed his clay-court season in advance of the French Open was in tiptop shape. But he was still thinking about it and hadn’t yet been able to hit a forehand with abandon — until Friday, when Korda’s bold play was the exact right kind of distracting.

“Today was, I think, more demanding match for me,” Alcaraz said. “At some point I forget about everything and I hit the forehand normally, let’s say.”

With the win, Alcaraz moves on to face either 15th-seeded Ben Shelton from Florida or 21st-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime from Canada, whose third-round match was paused because of rain that wreaked yet more havoc on the schedule Friday. It will resume Saturday with Auger-Aliassime serving for the first set up 5-4.

Alcaraz, a 21-year-old two-time Grand Slam champion, has had no such issues, playing all of his matches under a roof at Court Philippe-Chatrier, one of two courts with a retractable cover at Roland Garros. He has dropped only one set, too — to Jesper De Jong in his second-round match — and is one of a handful of contenders still alive in what’s considered the most wide-open men’s draw in about 20 years.

It’s early, but only one of the top men’s seeds has fallen. Sixth-seeded Andrey Rublev lost to Matteo Arnaldi, 7-6 (8-6), 6-2, 6-4, on Friday in a messy outing that left him with 37 unforced errors, four double faults and what must be a sore knee after he smashed his racket against it repeatedly in frustration.

Rublev had been one to watch in Paris, having won the Madrid Open on clay in early May. Instead, Arnaldi will move on to face ninth-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas, who beat Zhang Zhizhen, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1, on Friday.

“When it comes to the battle, he will fight and he will not give up,” Tsitsipas said of the 35th-ranked Arnaldi. “… There are certain profile of players that you can notice that more and other ones not so much, let’s say. They’re a little more passive. He gets really into the game, and this is something that I for sure need to approach with caution and build around it, find my ways around it. It’s almost like a river. You have to find ways around it and reroute and figure it out.”

The upper echelon of the women’s draw has seen a touch more upheaval, with unseeded American Peyton Stearns upsetting 10th-seeded Daria Kasatkina on Thursday and ninth-seeded Jelena Ostapenko and 11th-seeded Danielle Collins also gone.

But top-seeded Iga Swiatek needed just 1 hour 33 minutes to prevail against Marie Bouzkova, 6-4, 6-2, and fifth-seeded Marketa Vondrousova, the reigning Wimbledon champion, moved on as well. Third-seeded Coco Gauff’s third-round win over 30th-seeded Dayana Yastremska came with a bit more drama for the reigning U.S. Open champion.

Gauff won, 6-2, 6-4, recovering after letting a 5-2 lead slip away in the second set.

“I was just trying to just remind myself I’m in the better position,” Gauff said after. “I’m the one up a set and double break, so I was just reminding myself of that. Sometimes when those moments happen and you just want to finish the match so fast, you can let things triple over. … I just try to remind myself the positioning of the match.”

The 20-year-old made the final at the French Open in 2022 and has yet to drop a set this year in Paris, leaving her plenty of time for keeping up with cultural goings on, including a tribute from Los Angeles Sparks rookie Cameron Brink.

Ahead of the Sparks’ marquee matchup against Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever on Wednesday, Brink wore a tennis-inspired outfit and quipped, “I want to be like Coco.” (They are both signed to New Balance).

“I haven’t got the chance to meet Cameron yet but obviously been watching her a lot when she was at Stanford, and now seeing her in the WNBA is great, and I definitely want to try to catch a game,” Gauff said. “There are a couple of players I want to see. I wasn’t expecting it, and it was very nice of her. I think she rocked the fit better than anybody could have. Yeah, I hope one day maybe — New Balance is my team. I hope they give her a signature shoe one day and I can rock it, too, for my press events.”