By Martyn Herman
PARIS (Reuters) -Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz powered into the Olympic singles final with a brutal 6-1 6-1 thrashing of overwhelmed Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime at Roland Garros on Friday.
The 21-year-old second seed is bidding to add the Olympic gold to the French Open and Wimbledon titles he won recently and was in devastating form on Court Philippe Chatrier.
Alcaraz will face either top seed Novak Djokovic or Italian Lorenzo Musetti in Sunday’s gold-medal match.
They play their semi-final later on Friday.
“I played at a very high level from the beginning to the end,” Alcaraz, who was sharper than in his quarter-final win against Tommy Paul, told Eurosport’s Alex Corretja on court.
“One of my objectives at the beginning of the year was to win a gold medal and now we have this one match to try to get it and I am going to have fun.
“It’s a very important moment for my team, my family and the Spanish people and I want to do the business.”
Auger-Aliassime was bidding to become the first Canadian to reach an Olympic singles final and threw everything in his arsenal at Alcaraz, only to have it returned with interest.
“Be it the forehand, the forehand inside out, the back inside, I mean, every aspect, the movement, the defence, I was dominated, there’s not much more to say,” the 23-year-old said.
From the moment Auger-Aliassime double-faulted to hand over an early service break it was one-way traffic and a ruthless Alcaraz wrapped up the victory in little more than an hour.
Auger-Aliassime still has the possibility of taking home two medals as he will contest the bronze medal match in the mixed doubles later alongside Gabriela Dabrowski and will face the loser of the other semi-final for singles bronze.
Italy are guaranteed their first Olympic tennis medal since 1924 after Jasmine Paolini and Sara Errani eased past Czech duo Karolina Muchova and Linda Noskova 6-3 6-2 to reach the women’s doubles final.
Unseeded Australian pair Matthew Ebden and John Peers booked their place in the men’s doubles final with a 7-5 6-2 victory against Americans Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul and will now face another U.S. duo in Rajeev Ram and Austin Krajicek.
Later on Friday world number one Iga Swiatek was trying to become the first Polish player to win an Olympic tennis medal, albeit a bronze, against Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
Four-time French Open champion Swiatek was surprisingly beaten by China’s Zheng Qinwen in the semi-finals.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman; additional reporting by Sybille de La HamaideEditing by Alison Williams)
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