Carlos Alcaraz marched into the third round of the US Open with a comprehensive straight-sets victory over Luciano Darderi at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday afternoon despite taking a medical timeout midway through the second set.
Alcaraz needed just an hour and 44 minutes to secure a 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 victory over Darderi in the early session on Ashe, marking his third successive straight-sets victory at the tournament this year.
Alcaraz, who exited the US Open in the second-round last year, has looked back to his best in 2025 and was in scintillating form on Friday, producing an impressive 31 winners against just 12 unforced errors.
He did, however, drop his serve for the first time in the tournament during a mini-wobble in the second set when Darderi won three straight games to bring the set back on level terms at 4-4.
Alcaraz took a medical timeout shortly afterward due to a complication in his right knee but insisted that the measure was purely precautionary. The Spaniard had appeared to land awkwardly during a serve and said something in his knee was “bothering” him.
“After five or six points it was gone,” Alcaraz said. “It was nothing serious, it was just a precaution.”
The medical timeout appeared to do the trick for Alcaraz, with the Spaniard racing through seven consecutive games to clinch victory in the afternoon sunshine.
Alcaraz, who joked afterward that he is not a morning person, also battled an early start time, with the match starting at the unusual time of 11:30 a.m.
“This is only the second time (in his career) that I have played at this time,” Alcaraz said. “I just went to bed at 11/11:15 p.m. That, for me, is really weird, which I’m really proud of.”
Alcaraz has already improved on his 2024 US Open performance, when he suffered a shock second-round exit against Botic can de Zandchulp, and the Spaniard insisted that he is “trying to not do the same things as last year.”
“Every time that I step on the court, I’m just locked in since the first point until the last one,” he said. “I’m taking last year as an observation and coming this year… to be more ambitious and do great things here.”
The World Number 2 has dropped just 10 games across his second and third-round victories over Darderi and Mattia Bellucci and looks in fine fettle ahead of a fourth-round clash with France’s Arthur Rinderknech, who has already posted a career-best performance by reaching the fourth round of a grand slam for the first time in his career.
Alcaraz eased through the opening set on Friday, requiring just 27 minutes to clinch the first set 6-2 against an opponent who could not cope with Alcaraz’s variety. Darderi won just two points on the Alcaraz serve throughout the first set and managed just two winners compared to Alcaraz’s eight in an emphatic opening set.
He has rarely looked fazed in the competition to date and appeared to be on the way to another comfortable set when he broke early to move 4-1 ahead in the second, only to be drawn into a battle as Darderi rallied.
The Italian went on the attack on the Alcaraz serve, bringing up two break points after forcing errors out of the Spaniard. Alcaraz was broken for the first time at the 2025 US Open when he fired an unforced error while facing a second break point.
Leading 5-4 in the set, Alcaraz took a medical timeout to address the injury to his knee and returned a different player, bringing up two set points on the Darderi serve. The Italian produced a fourth double fault of the set to hand Alcaraz a two-set advantage.
The third set, meanwhile, was one-way traffic as Alcaraz upped a gear. Darderi, who took a medical timeout late in the set, simply had no answer to Alcaraz’s newfound level, with Alcaraz winning 13 of 18 points on the Darderi serve.
