, Nov 1 (IANS) Spain's Carlos Alcaraz rounded off a perfect week at the Vienna Open in style, beating Alex de Minaur of Australia in straight sets in Vienna on Sunday, completing a perfect ATP 500 season with his fourth tour-level title. Vienna (Austria), Nov 1 (IANS) Spain's Carlos Alcaraz rounded off a perfect week at the Vienna Open in style, beating Alex de Minaur of Australia in straight sets in Vienna on Sunday, completing a perfect ATP 500 season with his fourth tour-level title. The No. 3 player in the ATP Rankings powered to a 6-1, 6-4 championship-match victory against De Minaur to claim the trophy in the indoor hard-court event. Alcaraz delivered an all-around high-quality 97-minute display to overwhelm the World No. 10 De Minaur and earn his fourth tour-level trophy of the season without dropping a set across his five matches. Sunday's title took Alcaraz's title count to 11, taking his past into double figures and in second place behind triple-toppers Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, all of whom have 15 titles and are the ATP 500 title leaders in the history of the series since 2009."My team and I know pretty well Alex de Minaur's level," Alcaraz said. "His style is really dangerous. Really flat balls that slip a lot through the court really low. It's really difficult to increase the power that I want to in every shot and every ball. He's really fast, so you have to earn every point. You might hit a winner against everybody, except him. I had to be really focused on that, so we knew I had to start the match really focused, increasing my speed, my pace in every shot."I tried to be aggressive and show him that if he wants to win, he has to play better [than me], more aggressive, more solid, and be smarter than me. I'm just really happy that at the end I found my way, played great, and obviously it has been a really emotional and amazing week for me. I learned a lot, to keep going forward, step by step, playing on indoor courts, and trying to gain more confidence playing on this surface," she said. With his Vienna crown, Alcaraz completed a perfect 16-0 season at ATP 500 events, a tally which includes title runs in Doha and Tokyo. The 23-year-old is on a 26-match winning streak at that level overall, having not lost an ATP 500 match since his Barcelona championship-match defeat to Holger Rune in April 2025. He trails only the 'Big Three' of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic on the list of ATP 500 titles won. Alcaraz was in imperious form in the opening set of Sunday's final in Vienna. The Spaniard struck the ball cleanly off both wins, and the combination of power and precision on his groundstrokes regularly put De Minaur's renowned defensive skills to the test. Although the Australian dug deep in trademark fashion and took five of the seven games to deuce, Alcaraz's quality at key moments earned him three breaks of serve and a 6-1 lead. De Minaur, the Rotterdam champion who entered the Vienna title clash unbeaten across 10 indoor matches in 2026, continued to feel the pressure in the second set. The 27-year-old fended off a break point to hold in each of the second, fourth and eighth games, but he was unable to repeat the escape in the 10th. On his first championship point at 30/40, Alcaraz prevailed in a scintillating all-court rally to seal his triumph. Alcaraz finished the match having won 81 per cent (29/36) of points behind his first serve. The Spaniard leads De Minaur 7-0 in the pair's ATP head-to-head series, and he is now 15-0 against Australians in tour-level matches overall. The owner of a 38-5 record for the season, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, Alcaraz will head to the Paris Masters full of confidence after a lightning-fast start to his European indoor season. The Spaniard, who has already qualified for the season-ending ATP Finals in Turin, will take on Jiri Lehecka or Alex Michelsen in his first match at the French ATP Masters 1000 event.
