Diallo delivers strong start, win for Canada after late entry into Madrid Open main draw

The Canadian Press

· Posted: Apr 24, 2025 10:48 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

Montreal's Gabriel Diallo made the astir of a last-minute spot successful the Madrid Open, beating Belgium's Zizou Bergs 6-1, 6-2 successful the opening circular successful Spain.

Diallo entered the main gully arsenic a replacement for Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka, who withdrew earlier the tournament.

Diallo didn't look a interruption constituent and won 86 per cent of his first-serve points. He converted each 4 of his interruption chances and won 19 points connected return.

It was a beardown effect aft falling to Croatia's Borna Coric 6-3, 7-6 (6) successful the last circular of qualifying connected Wednesday.

Diallo volition adjacent look chap fortunate loser Kamil Majchrzak, who replaced two-time champion Carlos Alcaraz aft the second-seeded Spaniard withdrew Thursday with a musculus injury.

Later Thursday, 25th-seeded Leylah Fernandez of Laval, Que., was scheduled to look Ann Li of the United States.

Alcaraz cites 'demanding sport' for withdrawal

Home-crowd favourite Carlos Alcaraz withdrew from the Madrid Open connected Thursday due to the fact that of musculus injuries, saying helium didn't privation to hazard making things worse earlier the French Open.

The third-ranked Spaniard blamed his injuries connected the "really tight" docket that is portion of the "demanding sport" of tennis.

Alcaraz said helium has not afloat recovered from the precocious limb ailment that bothered him during the Barcelona Open last past Sunday. He besides said helium has a near limb injury. His archetypal quality astatine the Caja Magica successful Madrid was scheduled for Saturday.

Alcaraz said helium did "everything imaginable to play" but had to marque the "tough decision" to retreat aft listening to his assemblage and talking to doctors.

"Madrid is 1 of the peculiar tournaments for me, it's a tourney that I enjoy, I get to play successful beforehand of my fans, it's 1 of the archetypal tournaments I attended erstwhile I was a kid," Alcaraz said.

"These types of decisions are not casual to marque but sometimes you person to deliberation astir your wellness and astir what is important. A Grand Slam is simply a Grand Slam. If I play here, I could marque the injuries worse and halt for respective months and that's not worthy it."

Alcaraz is simply a two-time champion successful Madrid, having won successful 2022 and 2023. He was the 2nd effect this week and successful the aforesaid fractional of the gully arsenic Novak Djokovic.

He said helium felt "secure" astir recovering successful clip to play adjacent period astatine Roland Garros, wherever helium is the defending champion. He won the Roland Garros last past twelvemonth against Alexander Zverev, who has conscionable leapfrogged the Spaniard to No. 2 successful the satellite aft winning successful Munich past week.

The four-time Grand Slam champion has a 24-5 grounds this year. In summation to Monte Carlo, helium besides won successful Rotterdam connected hard tribunal successful February.

Alcaraz said helium plans to play successful Rome up of the French Open, which begins connected May 25.