Hello tennis world! This is the first post on this site and it felt appropriate to discuss the transformation of Carlos Alcaraz over the past 13 months and why it is this author’s belief that we are moving into a new era with a more mature game by Carlos Alcaraz and why he will win everything there is to be won in tennis.
It isn’t because he is the best player, or the best mover or the best shotmaker. He is all of these things and he has been for a while now. Up until Roland Garros 2024, Alcaraz’s nemesis had not been Novak Djokovic or Jannik Sinner, but what Alcaraz calls “the nerves.” Those and his first serve which when stressed would often go into the net, especially at the start of a game. The nerves famously made an appearance in the semi-final of Roland Garros 2023, cutting short his march to the final. Many commentators had said that the 2nd set of that match against Djokovic was one of the best ever played at Roland Garros and it is a loss to the world of tennis that he cramped in the sets that followed.
A few weeks later, Alcaraz and Djokovic would meet again in the Wimbledon final, going all the way into 5 sets with Alcaraz dishing a few big serves and clinching his first Grass slam title. Djokovic made a reference to those serves in his concession speech, and fast forward a year later, Alcaraz was dishing aces in his matches on a regular basis. Commentators had pointed out that he had made some small technical changes on the first serve and the impact of those changes was very prominent through both Roland Garros and Wimbledon this year.
But this is not why Alcaraz will win it all. A big serve does not make a champion. Tennis is very much a mental game of focus and agility and over the past year we have all witnessed a profound shift in Alcaraz’s mental resilience and fortitude. In one of his Roland Garros on-court interviews this year Alcaraz said: you have to learn to love the suffering; and it is this acceptance of the deep lows that tennis than can bring to a player that speaks to his profound understanding of the ebb and flow of positive and negative energy that takes over a match.
A new era:
One clear example of Alcaraz’s mental fortitude is his reaction to losing serve when he was up 3 championship points at Wimbledon earlier this month. He lost those points through unforced errors and a double fault. You could see him whispering “vamos” to himself at one point. Losing serve to a resurgent Djokovic should be enough to strike fear in the heart of any player. Djokovic is famously tough as an opponent and one cannot rule him out until the trophies have been handed out and the pictures have been taken. And yet, fast forward to 20 minutes later, Alcaraz is up 5-4 in the tie break and he sends over a superb drop shot. It was a shot so sublime in skill that the ball arrived devoid of any momentum, dropping dead on impact. The camera goes back to Alcaraz who smiles. He had his groove back and he was serving for the championship again and he knew he will get it this time. It is this relaxed and confident smile, the self-belief that translates into the deadly drop shot, the speaks volumes to the inner workings of this great athlete.
So here we have a superbly talented player who has learned how to tame his demons and most importantly, has learned how to win grand slams even when he is not playing his best tennis. Of course when looking at the highlight reels of Roland Garros and Wimbledon one would think that this was Alcaraz in top form but one should keep in mind that Alcaraz had missed most of the clay season and that the 2nd half of 2023 was rather lacklustre and without any trophies. It felt like something broke in the Cincinnati final which he lost to Djokovic, and that it un-broke in Indian Wells earlier this year. If it weren’t for injuries, it’s likely that he would have been able to defend his Barcelona and Madrid titles as well.
His performance in Roland Garros and Wimbledon was often more patient, and more disruptive of the opponent’s game. This we could see in all the high balls he kept sending to Sinner and Zverev. So here was Carlos, occasionally playing his best tennis, then faltering, then picking himself up and disrupting his opponent’s rhythm.
And this, dear reader, is why he will win it all. Because no player can guarantee that they will always be playing in top form. But a player who is able to pick himself up after a fall, a player who has learnt to balance the childlike joy in the game of tennis with the lethal precision of game disruption and unforgiving attacks?
This is the player who will take it all.