NEWS: Carlos Alcaraz recovers from bizarre slump to reach Japan Open final

After he broke Munar’s serve in the seventh game, Alcaraz held to take a 5-3 lead, but he lost the next four games as his Spanish compatriot stole the set.

Alcaraz was broken at love when serving at 5-4 and 5-6, and he lost 16 consecutive points in a run that ended in the opening game of the second set, when he broke Munar.

The seven-time Grand Slam champion went on to wrap up a convincing straight-set victory to extend his win streak at the Japan Open to nine matches. He faces Jrir Lehecka in the final after the Czech knocked out eighth seed Valentin Vacherot 6-4, 6-2.

In each of Alcaraz’s wins against Alex Michelsen, Matteo Arnaldi and Denis Shapovalov in Tokyo this year, Alcaraz saved set points before winning the first set on a tiebreak.

Following his victory against Munar, Alcaraz expressed his confusion at his struggles in the opening sets of his matches during the tournament.

“Well, I don’t know what happens in the first set – the first sets in general, to be honest,” said the 23-year-old

“I don’t know, I started the match well – break, serving for the set. I don’t know what happened. It seems like I’m struggling every first set.

“But the way that I come back every time, I’m really, really happy about it. Today, I started the match really well against Jaume – that is a really tough player to play against. And these conditions, I think, suit him really well.

“I just tried to stay there as much as I can until that 5-4… after that, as I said, I don’t know what happened.

“But just happy that in the second set, I tried to stay there, tried to play a few good games in the beginning. I make a couple of breaks, that helped me a lot to get a bit of confidence, and I tried to play more aggressive.

“I didn’t let him go into his style, I didn’t let him to, let’s say, drive the match in his areas. So I tried to push him in every shot, in every ball, in every point. And it was the key, I think, for the match today.”