Arthur Rinderknech had Carlos Alcaraz reeling on Monday in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open on Monday, but the 26th-seeded Frenchman couldn’t seal the deal. The top-seeded Spaniard rallied for a 6-7 (8), 6-3, 6-2 victory in Indian Wells, Calif.
Rinderknech saved a set point late in the first-set tiebreaker while winning the last three points.
He subsequently broke Alcaraz’s serve to open the second set. Then Alcaraz rediscovered the form that led him to the Indian Wells championship in 2023 and 2024 – not to mention the career Grand Slam – by winning 12 of the match’s final 16 games.
The rally allowed Alcaraz to remain perfect in 2026: 14 matches, 14 wins, including the Australian Open championship. Alcaraz gave plenty of praise to Rinderknech post-match. “I just sometimes get tired about playing Roger Federer every round,” Alcaraz joked. “Yeah, sometimes just feel like, yeah, they are playing really at an insane level.
“I don’t know if I’m feeling not the right way, but I feel it’s just against me all the time. If they play like, you know, that level every match, they should be higher in the ranking.” Alcaraz added of the early deficit, “He was playing his best tennis, I would say, in the first, the beginning of the second. For me, it was really, really difficult. I got in trouble, to be honest, but just really happy with the way that I dealt with everything that was happening.