Alex De Minaur has continued his superb clay-court form to set up a mouth-watering quarter-final showdown with Carlos Alcaraz at the Barcelona Open.

Australian star De Minaur had eased into round two with a 6-4 6-4 defeat of Argentina’s Tomas Martin Etcheverry earlier in the week and again proved his credentials on the red surface on Thursday, powering to a 6-1 6-2 victory over Great Britain’s Jacob Fearnley in just 62 minutes.

Fearnley came in as a lucky loser for his first professional event on clay at any level and beat Roberto Carballes Baena in his opening match.

He was ranked outside the top 600 a year ago, before winning four ATP Challenger titles in 2024 to rise inside the top 100, but he was no match for the Sydney-born world No.7 in Barcelona.

The big-hitting fifth seed did not look back after breaking in the opening game, with Fearnley unable to make much of an impression on his opponent’s serve, winning just three of 23 points.

De Minaur last week signalled his clay-court intentions by scorching through to the last four at the Monte Carlo Masters before losing to Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti.

And this latest win has propelled the 26-year-old into his 50th tour-level quarter-final. He is the third man born in 1999 or later to achieve that feat alongside Felix Auger-Aliassime and Jannik Sinner.

He will now face world No.2 Alcaraz, who stepped up his quest for a third Barcelona title by defeating Laslo Djere in straight sets.

The 2022 and 2023 champion trailed 4-2 in the second set to his Serbian opponent but reeled off four successive games to wrap up a 6-2 6-4 victory in 71 minutes.

It was a seventh successive win for the top-seeded Spaniard as he continues his excellent start to the clay season and follow up last week’s win in Monte-Carlo, where he beat Musetti in the final.

“I think I played great tennis, even though I had to come back from 4-2 in the second set,” he said on the ATP Tour’s official website.

Meanwhile, Belgium’s David Goffin has battled back from a nightmare opening set to book his place in the BMW Open quarter-finals in Munich.

The former world No.7 raised his game after a first-set bagel to win 0-6 7-5 6-1 and now faces another Argentine in fifth seed Francisco Cerundolo, who ousted lucky loser Alexander Shevchenko of Kazakhstan, 6-3 6-2.