Carlos Alcaraz reaches Indian Wells semifinals, joins Nadal and Djokovic on exclusive list

There were some tricky moments, but Carlos Alcaraz moved through to the semifinals of Indian Wells in straight sets on Thursday night with a 6-3, 7-6 (4) quarterfinal victory over Francisco Cerundolo.

And with that victory, Alcaraz joins a very exclusive list—he’s just the third man ever to reach the semifinals or better at Indian Wells four or more years in a row, after Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

Alcaraz was a semifinalist in the desert in 2022 (falling to Nadal) and won back-to-back titles the last two years in 2023 and 2024.

The first men’s edition of Indian Wells took place in 1976.

The last player to reach three straight finals at Indian Wells was the other member of the Big 3, Roger Federer, from 2017 to 2019—he won the title in 2017 and finished runner-up in back-to-back years in 2018 (to Juan Martin del Potro) and 2019 (to Dominic Thiem).

Alcaraz may have gotten past Cerundolo in straight sets on Thursday night, but it was anything but easy—right from the start the Argentine was all up in his service games, holding at least one break point in each of his first three. But despite that the two traded holds for the first seven games of the match before the Spaniard finally drew first blood, breaking for 5-3 then serving out the opening set.

Cerundolo mounted even more of an assault in the second set, breaking en route to a 4-1 lead—and after Alcaraz broke back and evened it up at 4-all, he had to serve to stay in the set twice, even coming within two points of dropping it serving at 4-5, deuce.

But once they got to the tie-break Alcaraz took off, opening up a 3-0 lead and never looking back, eventually closing it out after an hour and 43 minutes when Cerundolo hit a backhand return into the net.

Understandably due to the breezy conditions, both players finished the match with negative overall winners-to-unforced errors differentials—but the Alcaraz forehand was just too good to be dragged down, producing 16 winners to just 10 unforced errors.

The No. 3-ranked Spaniard also converted two of his three break point opportunities, and saved eight of the nine he himself faced.

“I think he played really good tennis today,” Alcaraz said afterwards. “I think I would say the conditions were tougher than yesterday. It was more wind, colder—so it was really difficult for me to start the match. He had a lot of chances in the first set and I’m just pleased about saving all of them, and taking the only one that I had.

“Really happy with everything I’ve done today.”