carlos alcaraz

LONDON — Two-time defending champion Carlos Alcaraz reached the Wimbledon semifinals by beating Cameron Norrie 6-2, 6-3, 6-3 on Tuesday.

Alcaraz extended his winning streak to 23 matches and became the just second Spanish player in history to reach the men’s singles semifinals at Wimbledon on three occasions — the other was Rafael Nadal.

After Norrie held serve to open the match on Centre Court, the second-seeded Alcaraz took control by rattling off the next five games against the left-handed Briton.

Alcaraz never let Norrie into the match — facing only five break points and saving all of them. He compiled 39 winners and 13 aces to go with 26 unforced errors.

“To be able to play another semifinal here at Wimbledon is super special,” Alcaraz said in an on-court interview after finishing off the quarterfinal match in 1 hour, 39 minutes.

Alcaraz will face No. 5 Taylor Fritz for a spot in the final.

Earlier, Fritz recovered from a mid-match lull during which he was treated by a trainer for a foot problem and reached the semifinals for the first time with a 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4) victory over Karen Khachanov on Tuesday.

Fritz, an American who was the runner-up at last year’s U.S. Open, came in with a 1-4 record in major quarterfinals, 0-2 at Wimbledon.

He powered his way to a big early lead against No. 17 Khachanov, taking 40 of his 47 service points across the initial two sets and never facing a break chance in that span.

But then two-time major semifinalist Khachanov grabbed eight of nine games. It was during that stretch that Fritz took a medical timeout, removing his right shoe and sock so the trainer could re-tape the foot.

Khachanov broke to begin the fourth set, in a game in which Fritz’s top serve was 117 m.p.h., 18 m.p.h. slower than his fastest of the match to that point. He looked up at his guest box and tapped his racket against his thighs, perhaps indicating that he was dealing with some fatigue.

From 2-0 down in the fourth, though, Fritz began to regain his strength and touch, and was just two points from victory a total of three times while up 5-4 and 6-5. But Khachanov got things to the tiebreaker, where the score was 4-all, before Fritz claimed the final trio of points.

Fritz finished with 16 aces and reached a top speed of 138 m.p.h. by the end.

Khachanov, never past the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, fell to 0-11 in Grand Slam matches against opponents ranked in the top five.