The manner of the win did much to support Toni Nadal’s view that Alcaraz is already a more technically accomplished player than his nephew was at the same age. While Nadal spent the early years of his professional career gradually expanding his repertoire, the remarkable variety of the teenager’s game gives the impression of a player who has arrived on the tour fully formed. That is an illusion, of course. His serve remains, for the moment, a work in progress, and on another day his failure to consolidate an early second-set break could have proved costly. Yet Alcaraz’s impressive range of shots offer a clue as to why a photo of Roger Federer, rather than Nadal, takes pride of place in his room at the academy in Alicante where he trains.

“I think this is my game,” said Alcaraz, “a lot of variety. It was the key [to how] I won the match.”

His analysis was spot on. The raking topspin forehand that is Alcaraz’s calling card was complemented by two-handed backhands that reared up viciously off the clay, one-handed slices, lethal assurance in the forecourt and an array of deliciously artful drop shots. The rainbow that appeared over the court midway through the opening set, adding to the dramatic vista of the Corcovado mountain in the background, offered an obvious metaphor for the Spaniard’s kaleidoscopic arsenal.  

Such weaponry is only as effective as the player deploying it, and here Alcaraz utilised his assets with craft and intelligence. Few men know their way around a clay court better than Schwartzman, and in the early stages the third-seeded Argentine worked hard to pin the younger man in his weaker backhand corner. The Spaniard’s fleetness of foot ensured most of those shots were taken on the forehand, but the strategy served its purpose, drawing Alcaraz into the kind of protracted baseline exchanges that are meat and drink to Schwartzman. 

As the business end of a high-quality opening set beckoned, however, Alcaraz began to move in and redirect the ball down the line with his backhand, disturbing Schwartzman’s rhythm sufficiently to earn a vital break that he set up with a deft drop volley and sealed with a spectacular running pass. Alcaraz served out in summary fashion, ripping an off forehand, caressing an unreachable drop shot and hoisting a perfectly measured lob to finish the opener with 13 winners and just four unforced errors.

Schwartzman had battled for over five and a half hours the previous day to make it past Pablo Andujar and Francisco Cerundolo after bad weather meant the quarter- and semi-finals had to be played back-to-back. It exacted a toll that appeared more mental than physical. A double fault at deuce in the opening game of the second set proved costly, and with Alcaraz a set and a break to the good, things looked bleak for the Argentine. Yet Schwartzman was not about to roll over, and in the next game some bold play from the baseline seemed to unnerve Alcaraz, who gifted his opponent the break back with a pair of unforced errors. The setback was temporary. Alcaraz responded with a game of ferocious intensity, sealing another break with a blazing cross-court forehand and consolidating the advantage with a timely injection of pace on serve. He would lose only one more game.

“I can’t believe it, honestly. It has been a great week for me playing a great level,” said Alcaraz after becoming the youngest ATP 500 champion since the classification was introduced in 2009. “First tournament on clay since a long time, so I’m really happy with the performance during the whole week. It’s an amazing feeling right now.”

Alcaraz rises to a career-high ranking of 20, narrowly eclipsing Nadal as the youngest active player to achieve that landmark. For a player who made his ATP main draw debut in Rio just two years ago, it has been a remarkably rapid ascent. It will surely not be the last time he rewrites the record books.

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Ever his own harshest critic, Murray drew scant consolation from the knowledge that he once again pushed one of the world’s best players close. So far as he is concerned, a loss is a loss regardless of circumstance. It is a harsh attitude, but understandable. Murray knows what it is to lift the game’s greatest prizes and, even with a metal hip, the 34-year-old holds himself to unforgiving standards. He expressed bitter disappointment after losing in five sets to world No 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas at the US Open, and castigated himself for inconsistency and poor shot selection after losing a tight match against the fourth-ranked Alexander Zverev in Indian Wells. Here, Murray pinpointed his attitude and decision-making as the chief areas of concern.

“I didn’t make as many good decisions as I would have liked in the second set dealing with adversity,” said Murray, the world No 172. “Mentally I was poor and my attitude was poor on the court. They are two things you can control. If they’re not there, that will make the decision-making harder in the matches.

“Sport is a results business. Play well or poorly, it doesn’t matter if you lose matches. You need to be winning. That’s what I want in the last few tournaments [of the season]. There are no guarantees the results will come, but I want to win more matches.”

Kinder draws would help. As Murray rightly pointed out in Indian Wells, most of his losses in recent months have come against players ranked inside the top 15. Tsitsipas and Zverev aside, the former world No 1 was beaten by Casper Ruud in San Diego and Hurbert Hurkacz in Metz and Cincinnati. Moreover, as his epic win over Tiafoe indicated, his body has been holding up better to the rigours of competitive play than at any stage since his return to the sport following hip surgery. Schwartzman was no more in doubt about the upward trajectory of Murray’s game than the vanquished Tiafoe, who hailed the Scot as “a true inspiration” and “the biggest competitor I know” in the aftermath of their opening-round epic.

“It was like I said to him, it was a pleasure to play against Andy,” said Schwartzman, who will face Brandon Nakashima, the rising young American, in the last eight. “We didn’t play before. He’s coming back, every week he’s moving better and he’s playing better. I just have a lot of respect [for him], because when I grew up I was watching Roger, Rafa, Andy and Djokovic. Right now, to play against him, it’s a pleasure for me and I was just trying to enjoy the match.”

How far the Argentine enjoyed the initial passage of play is debatable. Murray began in commanding mood, dictating the tempo from the baseline as his depth and variety made life uncomfortable for Schwartzman. The second seed belatedly found his range, however, sealing the opening set with a run of five successive games before breaking early in the second to establish a 4-2 lead. Murray clawed his way back into contention and saved a match point with a 116mph ace at 6-5 down in the tiebreak. He had twice come back from match point down against Tiafoe, but this time there was to be no reprieve. 

Murray will play at next week’s Vienna Open before a possible appearance at the Paris Masters next month, either as a wildcard or in the qualifying competition. “There’ll be a decision on the final Paris wildcard on Monday, but I might even play the qualies there,” he said.

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How wrong we were. Focused, fearless and nigh on perfect in everything he did, Norrie marked his first appearance in the last eight of a Masters series event with a demolition job, comprehensively outplaying the 11th-seeded Schwartzman for the loss of just two games. With his 45th victory of the season, a figure that takes him past Novak Djokovic, the Briton is likely to enter the world’s top 20 for the first time. He will also displace Dan Evans, whom Schwartzman defeated in the third round on Monday, as British No 1. 

Nobody beats the dogged Argentine 6-0, 6-2, particularly on a surface as slow as the one in Indian Wells, but by the end Schwartzman looked bereft of ideas. He had been outclassed in every department. Schwartzman was unable to outsteady Norrie. He was unable to use his trademark fleetness of foot when Norrie pulled the trigger from the baseline, such was the pinpoint accuracy of the Briton’s shot-making. He was unable to live with the potency and variety of Norrie’s play, watching on helplessly as his opponent fired winners from the back and angled off winning volleys at the net. When Norrie responded to a feathered drop shot with an even better one, struck with extraordinary finesse at the end of a lung-busting sprint into the forecourt, Schwartzman spread his arms wide in disbelief, utterly nonplussed. 

Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski, those twin luminaries of the British tennis establishment, hailed it as the best performance they had seen from Norrie. When Martina Navratilova, covering the tournament on British TV for Amazon Prime, asked Norrie if it was the biggest win of his career, he replied without hesitation: “I think so. It was such a big moment for me this morning, playing my first Masters 1000 quarter-final, especially against Diego, he’s such a great competitor and I thought I was in for an absolute battle. I’m so pleased to be through and I think, yeah, it’s probably my biggest match – and my biggest win – of my career, with all the circumstances and all the pressures. I was really happy with the way I handled everything.”

Norrie will face Grigor Dimitrov in the last four after the Bulgarian, who beat top seed Daniil Medvedev in the previous round after trailing by a set and 4-1, once again came from behind to beat Hubert Hurkacz, the eighth seed, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-2).

Hubert won 92% of the points behind his first serve in the opening set, ensuring a break in the eighth game was sufficient to give him the early lead. Dimitrov began to find his range in the second set, eventually levelling the match after clipping the net cord with a sliced backhand on set point. Having saved a break point early in the decider with an extraordinary lunging forehand volley, Dimitrov established a commanding 5-2 lead only for Hurkacz to hit back and force a tiebreak. Dimitrov held firm, however, finally sealing the win in two hours and 40 minutes.

“It was very hard for me to find my range today,” said Dimitrov, the 23rd seed. “Of course I was a little bit tired from yesterday, I didn’t feel like had enough time to really rest and push, but I still felt that I knew I had something in me. As soon as that second set ended, I knew that I had to step up a little bit more and be a little bit more aggressive.

“I started reading his serves a little bit more and I had a few looks. I kept on trying, I kept on believing, and I think that made the difference. Even in the third set, even when I was up, I felt like the match was never over. I knew he was going to fight and come back and play good tennis. I couldn’t finish the way I really wanted to, but I stayed in. That was the difference.”

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