While he had chosen to tour South America on clay to regain tournaments, Carlos Alcaraz failed in the semi-final in Buenos Aires before playing only two games in Rio where he was forced to withdraw. . The Murcian is experiencing the first real growth crisis of his career, a period that is certainly difficult to live through but a necessary passage that is undoubtedly beneficial.
This time, everything came together for him to find his feet again. Deprived of the presence of his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero during the Australian Open where he was unceremoniously knocked out in the quarter-final by Alexander Zverev, Carlos Alcaraz had his mentor at his side in South America. As well as a complete team, his physios, his physical trainer, his agent, his brother Alvaro and his father.
But nothing worked. Not only did the Murcian prodigy not retain his title in Buenos Aires, where he was knocked out in the semi-final by Nicolas Jarry, but he saw his adventure end almost before even starting in Rio where he twisted his ankle after two points and gave up after two games on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday .
This is the last episode of what we must call a slack period, the first real one in the young career of “Carlitos” which had (poorly) accustomed us to the exceptional. Since an anthology final lost in Cincinnati against Novak Djokovic last August, he has been experiencing what we can now call a growing pains, having until now only suffered mini-setbacks followed by big leaps. ahead.
A FIRST REAL GROWTH CRISIS
Like in the summer of 2022 when he missed the start of his American tour , admitting some difficulties in taming his new star status… before going for the US Open and becoming the youngest number 1 in the history of the game in the process. Or like in the spring of 2023 when he was consumed by stress in the semi-final of Roland-Garros against the “Djoker”, before dropping him in five fantastic sets in his Wimbledon garden a month later. Like the “Big 3”, Alcaraz showed very early on that he was capable of evolving in another dimension than that of the rest of the circuit.
At 20, he has somehow already made the extraordinary commonplace. So much so that seeing him win a Masters 1000 is a sort of normality. So an ATP 250 in Buenos Aires or an ATP 500 in Rio where the field was modest so to speak, it was obvious. Perhaps he himself had come to think so a little. At a pre-tournament press conference in Brazil, he implicitly admitted that tournaments of this standard interested him less than the upcoming Olympic Games . When you’ve earned so much at such a young age, what could be more understandable.
BETWEEN EFFICIENCY AND SPECTACULARITY, A BALANCE TO FIND
But as extraordinary a champion as he is, Alcaraz is nonetheless a human being with his flaws. And he may have forgotten some fundamentals. ” Let’s not forget that Djokovic won his first Grand Slam in 2008 and the second in 2011 ,” observes our consultant Arnaud Di Pasquale. Isn’t it human to need to set up your tennis to be able to reproduce it? And to achieve this, you have to gain peace of mind. His core game at the moment is still to use cartridges! “
Show before efficiency is perhaps one of the fundamental facts of the problem that the young Spaniard must solve at the moment. All observers, including his colleagues including Daniil Medvedev, who recently spoke about it in an interview with Eurosport , were so captivated by his ability to produce extraordinary shots that he may have found himself trapped in some way. sort. As if condemned to constantly produce “highlights”, and by force, to lose the common thread of its parts. This way of playing works against most of the competition, as Alcaraz already has the margin, less so against its main rivals, who are more tactically seasoned.
The challenge that awaits him perhaps consists first of all in returning to the essential, that is to say, in the way of constructing the points, without however denying its deep nature, its panache. ” Sometimes, he will have to accept the exchange a little more, to build and to commit less, to almost throw himself into the ball, to avoid making too many mistakes. But he will have to find a balance, because his game is not about being wait-and-see: he is aggressive, in percussion, he goes forward. Otherwise, we make him another player ,” Arnaud Di Pasquale further points out.
THE TRAP OF “BIG 3” STANDARDS
Very early on, Alcaraz had the “Big 3” in his sights. He also confessed in Buenos Aires his ambition to try to “get closer” to the standards set by Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. The pitfall of this type of almost unattainable model lies in the obligation to win. The Swiss, who was also the Murcian’s youth idol, admitted to having created a monster who had no right to lose. He already had 12 Grand Slam titles to his name. Demanding the same thing from a young man of 20 – an age at which Federer did not yet have the slightest Major under his belt – simply makes no sense.
While he pointed out a flaw in the Spaniard’s service in his podcast “Served”, the former American champion Andy Roddick was quick to put things into perspective. ” Any criticism of Carlos Alcaraz is done with eyes wide open, well aware that what he is doing is extraordinary. I have tried all my life to win a second Grand Slam title without succeeding. This guy does it. made during his trial period. This kind of observation, I make it out of respect for him ,” he insisted.
Accustomed to learning at great speed, to quickly dispelling doubt, Alcaraz goes through his first major zone of turbulence. He has not played a final on the circuit for six months and could quickly give up his place as runner-up to Djokovic (who will remain No. 1 until the beginning of April) to Jannik Sinner, on whom he only has 500 points. in advance when he will have to defend his title in Indian Wells. But letting the Italian, expected to become one of its major rivals for many years, take the spotlight for a while may not be the worst news ever. Because there is nothing better than shade, even relative shade, to lay solid foundations. And once the storm has passed, it would not be surprising to see it resurface, stronger than ever.
