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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”.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Djokovic said Alcaraz must be very pleased with what he has done so far.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
You know, I have tremendous respect for him, and, you know, he’s got a great coach, a great team of people around him.”<\/p>\n
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