Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz reached the last 16 of the Madrid Open as he cruised past Thiago Seyboth Wild.
World number three Alcaraz won 6-3 6-3 against Brazil’s Seyboth Wild.
The win continues second seed Alcaraz’s dominance at the event, which he won in 2022 and 2023.
“Today was the test of fire, no discomfort, feeling spectacular, from here, we’ll be getting better,” said Alcaraz, 20.
The Spaniard was again sporting a compression sleeve on his right arm following an injury which caused him to pull out of the Barcelona Open this month, but he showed no signs of discomfort in a straightforward win over his unseeded opponent.
Alcaraz broke twice in each set, racing into a 5-0 lead in the second, and despite a late break from Seyboth Wild the win was complete in 75 minutes.
“Maybe today I was a bit nervous about how it would be, Thiago hits the ball so hard, I didn’t know how the forearm would hold up,” added Alcaraz.
At 93.3%, Alcaraz holds the highest win percentage at the Madrid Open of any player in a single ATP-1000 event since the introduction of the format in 1990 (minimum 10 matches played).
The two-time major winner will play Germany’s 23rd seed Jan-Lennard Struff in the last 16 in a repeat of the 2023 final.
Struff, who came into the tournament on the back of his win at the BMW Open in Munich last week, beat French 13th seed Ugo Humbert 7-5 6-4.
Elsewhere in the men’s draw, Russian seventh seed Andrey Rublev beat Spanish 27th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 7-6 (12-10) 6-4, while Polish eighth Hubert Hurkacz beat Germany’s Daniel Altmaier 6-4 7-6 (7-2).
In the women’s bracket, two-time champion and second seed Aryna Sabalenka had to work hard to beat unseeded American Robin Montgomery over three sets.
Belarus’ Sabalenka won 6-1 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 in two hours 29 minutes and next faces American Danielle Collins, who beat Jaqueline Cristian 3-6 6-4 6-1.
Kazakh fourth seed Elena Rybakina, who won last week’s Stuttgart Open, beat Egypt’s Mayar Sherif 6-1 6-4.
She will face the Czech Republic’s unseeded Sara Bejlek in the fourth round after the teenager beat American Ashlyn Krueger 6-3 6-1.
Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova is out following a 7-5 6-1 defeat by 16-year-old Russian Mirra Andreeva.
