What Is Wrong With Carlos Alcaraz?

What's wrong with Carlos Alcaraz? Well, I can tell you there's nothing wrong with Carlos Alcaraz, but there is something wrong with the unrealistic expectations that the media, coaches, and the general public have put on him. I remember vividly when I made my rant after Alcaraz beat Djokovic in the Wimbledon final, and I titled the article "Djokovic should have won."

There was such media hype around Alcaraz; people were saying that he's going to win 30 slams, that he's better than Nadal, Djokovic, and Federer, that he's a combination of all three. Of course, it didn't help that Djokovic said this in the press conference. I watched that match and expressed my honest opinion that Djokovic should have won that match because he missed easy opportunities.

GOAT Level

Now, I'm not taking anything away from Alcaraz; he's an unbelievable player. However, you have to put into perspective the achievements of Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic. I don't think that we're going to see achievements like that in the next 100 years or longer. So, how many tournaments has Carlos Alcaraz won since Wimbledon? Zero. You have to realize how difficult it is to win a tournament, never mind a Grand Slam.

The reason why I say there's nothing wrong with Alcaraz is that he's been playing good tennis. He's ranked number two in the world after winning The Wimbledon Championships. He was in the semifinals of the US Open; he also reached the final of Cincinnati prior to the US Open. He had a couple of patchy results in the indoor season in Shanghai and in Paris. Then he reached the semis of the World Tour Finals and lost to Alex Zverev in a four-set thriller in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. So these are good results; he's playing good tennis.

Digging Up A Hole

And of course, the same people that were hyping him up after he won Wimbledon are now saying that he's no good, he's a showman, he'll never achieve the results of the big three, and so on. I want to remind you guys that a lot of great players go through ups and downs throughout the season. Currently, Alcaraz is going through normal ups and downs that every top player goes through. Do you remember what happened to Pete Sampras after he won his first US Open? He had a tough time replicating that result and was going through some patchy spots before starting to play better again a couple of years later.

I have seen Carlos Alcaraz's form improve in the World Tour Finals. He did play some good matches there. He did not play a warm-up tournament prior to the Australian Open. I was super impressed with his Round of 16 win against Kecmanovic, and also, after getting blown out in the first two sets against Zverev, being down 5-2 in the third, he fought back, playing unbelievable tennis.

Then in the tiebreak, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend that you watch the third-set tiebreak. Alcaraz was hitting one spectacular passing shot after the next. In the fourth set, Zverev won a clutch game down 3-4. If Zverev would have lost that game and got broken, Alcaraz would have had great chances to win that match. But Zverev held his serve, broke at 4-all, and then held serve at 5-4 to win the match in four sets.

Strong Odds

Now, I'm going to talk about Zverev towards the end of the article, so stay tuned. While I think that there's nothing wrong with Alcaraz right now, I do think he's going to have a good season. He's going to have great chances in every tournament that he steps foot in—the French Open, Wimbledon, the US Open. Personally, I don’t see anyone taking Roland Garros from him this year. He's got chances to win all those tournaments and all the big tournaments that are in between the slams as well.

Goal Setting

There are two things that worry me a little bit about Alcaraz. Number one, I was worried with his goal-setting towards the end of last year when he was in Paris. He was talking about wanting to finish one round ahead of Djokovic because he wanted to finish the year ranked number one. And what happened was that he lost his first match in straight sets to Saffiulin. That is one of the classic mental traps that players fall into when they look too far ahead in the draw and don't concentrate on the next match. The level on the ATP Tour is sky-high, and you have to respect and take seriously every single opponent that you face.

Also, they asked Alcaraz during one of those on-court interviews whether he hits shots for the crowd, and Alcaraz answered yes. I don't know if he was joking or not, but if he was not joking, this is a big concern for me. Ultimately, when you are hitting shots for the crowd, these are going to be low-percentage type shots. And when you play low-percentage type shots, you're going to make a lot of errors, and ultimately, you're going to lose some matches that you shouldn't have.

What you end up doing is attempting jumping overheads, ala Sascha Zverev, or going between the legs or trying to hit spectacular winners down the line. This is what I'm talking about when I say low-percentage shots. The likelihood of missing on those types of balls is much higher than when you attempt a high-percentage shot.

As I said in some of my previous articles when I talked about Alcaraz, he's my favorite player out of all the young guys and in general as well. I enjoy watching him play, like many of you guys, I'm sure. It's a blessing that we have Alcaraz on the tour right now. Nevertheless, the media and what people say on social media, including coaches who were predicting Alcaraz to be the next GOAT, is quite toxic. I hope that Alcaraz is shielded from this because I do think that this type of expectations can affect a player negatively.

Rolled Ankles

Let's talk about Zverev. I remember when he rolled his ankle in 2022 against Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals of the French Open. He had a legitimate chance to beat a top-form Nadal on clay. At that particular moment, Zverev was playing top-three tennis. Now, if you look at Zverev's career, he's won some really big tournaments, beating the GOATs. He's got five Master Series titles under his belt, and he also won the World Tour Finals twice and won the gold medal at the Olympics. So we're talking about a high-caliber player capable of making big results.

Of course, what a lot of people remember from Zverev is losing at the US Open final against Thiem, where Zverev played a poor match. In fact, Thiem played a poor match as well. I do think that that particular match had a negative mental effect on Zverev when he was playing in Grand Slam tournaments. When Zverev came back from his ankle injury, it took him much longer to get back to the top than I expected. However, he did have some super valuable wins at the United Cup. Now, he wasn't playing his best tennis, but he was winning matches that were super tight, which is the most valuable thing for a player that's looking for confidence.

Final Thoughts

Even in the Australian Open, Zverev had some real battles, for example, beating Klien 7-6 in the fifth. And the result of coming through all these adversities when you are a top player like Zverev is that you are in a quarterfinal, you're playing against the number two player in the world, Alcaraz, and you're winning 6-1, 6-3, 5-2, playing some of the best tennis you've ever played. That is the crazy thing about tennis; it's truly a game of confidence.

Now, looking at the draw, Medvedev ended up coming through a tough match against Zverev. It was a super tight match between Zverev and Medvedev, going all the way to five sets. Hence, in the final we ended up with Medvedev and Sinner, who played lights out against Djokovic. For Medvedev, he's realizing now something that was said by other legends such as Safin, that it is much tougher to win your second Grand Slam than it is to win your first one. And for Zverev, winning a Grand Slam one day would complete his career. He's already a top player; the only thing that's missing in his resume is that Grand Slam title.