PARIS – Breaking news: He fooled us all into thinking he had been playing at the top of tennis for a decade. But no, Carlos Alcaraz is 20 years old. And until recently I was a “teenager”.
Those tender 20-year-olds were evident in Friday’s Roland Garros semi-final loss to Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, when a succession of cramps rendered the Spaniard an impotent tennis player.
“What happened today is mental, I went into the match more tense than usual, I couldn’t relax, from the start of the match I had an extra tension which in the end took its toll”, admitted Alcaraz afterwards from 6-3. , 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 with which Djokovic dispatched him.
“It is not easy to play with Novak. Whoever says that goes into playing without nerves against Novak is lying”, he added in a burst of sincerity that has led to declarations that he aspires to be one of the best of all time. There is still a long way to go. With unforeseen events such as cramps, for example.
Djokovic was in a bad place in the semi-final, coming off losing the second set and not playing well at the start of the third. But then, on the return of serve in the second game, Alcaraz made a strange, excessively rough, over-powered, over-rotated move and was stiff. I couldn’t step. It was later revealed that he had been struggling with cramps since the first set.
“They didn’t tell me to withdraw from the box office. I told them I was screwed, they told me if I couldn’t find a solution I should retire, but it would have hurt me a lot more if I retired. In the fourth set I thought I had a 1 percent chance, I wanted to hold on.”
The truth is that Alcaraz no longer had a chance, Djokovic was the master of everything. And, for the Spaniard and his coaching staff, the mission remains to see what happens to a player who, since November 2022, has suffered three major injuries that prevented him from finishing the previous season and left him out of the Open from Australia
Djokovic said Alcaraz must be very pleased with what he has done so far.
“It’s part of the learning curve. It’s part of the experience. He’s only 20, you know. So he’s got a lot of time. He’s shown a lot of maturity in the last couple of years. A few years ago he appeared in scene, winning his first title, and just one year later he wins his first Grand Slam and becomes No. 1.
You know, I have tremendous respect for him, and, you know, he’s got a great coach, a great team of people around him.”
If you’re reading this, it’s because you like tennis and enjoy the journalism we do. If you can and want to collaborate, invite us a COFFEE so we can keep telling the best #TennisStories around the world.
