Carlos Alcaraz battles past Hubert Hurkacz in Rotterdam to reach first indoor final of career

There aren’t a lot of firsts left for Carlos Alcaraz to achieve, but he got another one on Saturday: reaching the first indoor final of his career.

The four-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1 battled past Hubert Hurkacz, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-3, to move through to the title match at the ATP 500 indoor hard-court event in Rotterdam.

He had previously been to the semifinals at three indoor tournaments but was stopped at that stage every time, first at Vienna in 2021 (falling to Alexander Zverev), then at Basel in 2022 (falling to Felix Auger-Aliassime) and at the ATP Finals in 2023 (falling to Novak Djokovic).

All three of those players went on to win those titles.

Alcaraz is now through to the 22nd tour-level final of his career, the previous 21 all coming outdoors. He went 16-5 in those finals.

Things looked dire for Alcaraz early in the match as he found himself a point away from going down a double break serving at 0-3, 30-40—and even after holding in that game, he soon found himself down triple break point to go down a double break again serving at 1-4, 0-40.

But he battled his way to the next five games in a row to sneak out the first set, and he actually never faced a break point again, dropping the second set in a tie-break—despite coming within two points of the match serving up a mini-break at 5-4—then winning 12 of the first 13 points of the third set for a 3-0 lead and riding that break to victory.

He ripped one last inside-in forehand winner on match point to close it out, and it was a fitting ending as his forehand turned out to be the shot of the match, producing 26 winners to just 15 unforced errors.

Alcaraz finished the match with a total of 39 winners to 32 unforced errors, while Hurkacz was also in the positives, 33 to 31.

"I just fought—until every ball, until the end. That's all I was thinking about," Alcaraz said afterwards of his first set comeback. "I knew I was going to have my chances. His level at that time was really high. I'm really happy I was able to fight for every ball and to be able to save the break points to be 5-1 down. I'm really happy it paid off."

He was asked what he said to Hurkacz at the net: "Great level, great match—all I could say in that moment," he said. "I think we both played at such a high level, for the people as well it was a great match."

Awaiting the No. 1-seeded Alcaraz in the final on Sunday will be No. 3-seeded Alex de Minaur, who defeated surprise semifinalist Mattia Bellucci of Italy in the first semifinal of the day, 6-1, 6-2.

Bellucci, a No. 92-ranked qualifier into the draw this week, had recorded his first two Top 20 wins against Daniil Medvedev and Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to the first ATP semifinal of his career.

Alcaraz is 2-0 against De Minaur, but it could easily have been 1-1, as the Australian held double match point in their first meeting in the semifinals of Barcelona in 2022, serving for the match at 6-5, 40-15 in the second set before ultimately falling, 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-4, after three hours and 40 minutes on court. The Spaniard then won their second meeting in the final of Queen's Club in 2023, 6-4, 6-4.

This will be their first meeting on hard courts, and indoors.