“Good night, huh?”. “Very good night!”. Not given to interaction, a US Open employee congratulates a Dutch journalist, who reciprocates and happily qualifies because one of his own, Botic van de Zandschulp, will now go down as one of the proper names of this edition that has suffered the first great upheaval in the second round, without anyone expecting it, or perhaps the man who receives the congratulations in the early hours of the morning: Carlos Alcaraz, koThe Spaniard, with a serious expression and sometimes trying to find words, just as he was searching for his tennis on the court a short while earlier, speaks in the conference room at Flushing Meadows and becomes ugly: he has mentally regressed, but he cannot find an explanation. So the pause and the cold analysis are in order.
At 21, Alcaraz must already process the toll of defeats like this, which are more painful in substance than in form. He has played badly, probably worse than ever on a big stage since he took off, but what really hurts him, he says, is the mental regression he suffered on the North American tour. The stumble in Cincinnati against Gael Monfils was interpreted as a mere accident, a circumstantial slip, but the fall in New York and the self-critical speech of the tennis player reveal that there is something underlying it. Surely, saturation. The seasons are extremely long and the Murcian’s stature at his young age forces him to have to win week after week, and the next one too.
Suddenly, he finds himself in a situation he has never known before. Losing like this is strange. “At the beginning of the match, I had a hard time getting the distance. I made a lot of mistakes, especially from distance, not seeing the ball well; I either hit it too far back or I hit it too far in front. I rarely felt the ball in the sweet spot. And on the returns the same, I felt like the ball was going away, like it wasn’t landing well, that I wasn’t landing well. It’s a rather strange feeling,” he says.
“And the truth is that what I feel right now is that instead of taking steps forward, I have taken steps backwards in terms of my mentality. And I don’t understand why, because I came from a spectacular summer, from Roland Garros (champion for the first time), from Wimbledon (second time), coming out of there saying that mentally I had taken a step forward, like I had realized that to win big things or Grand Slams you have to be mentally tough,” he explains. “I come to this tour and it’s like I’ve taken steps backwards. It’s like I’m not mentally well, it’s like I’m not strong. One of the problems I have is that I don’t know how to control myself, I don’t know how to manage it and that’s a problem for me, really,” he continues.
The Olympic defeat
He had previously lost twice on the second stage of a Grand Slam, both in 2021, when he was 18 and beginning to discover the curves of the elite. Australia and Wimbledon. But nothing compared to now, already consolidated as the new reference and in the midst of an extraordinary season in which he has set the pace, with two majors He has more in his pocket, another success in Indian Wells and the silver medal won in his first experience, which, as a winner, left a bittersweet taste in his mouth. Perhaps he is still reeling from that defeat against Novak Djokovic in the Chatrier. He denies it. “I rested a little after the Games. I thought it was enough and it helped me, but maybe it wasn’t. I probably didn’t come here with the energy I thought I would have, but I don’t think that affected me,” he says.
But the facts are against him. A smashed racket in Cincinnati and a slip-up at the US Open.
The reflection continues. “I have to see what exactly happened or what exactly is happening to me. The truth is that it has been a very emotional summer, very demanding. The tennis calendar is very tight, things are super tight. I have had my moments of disconnection, but well, I think that I am still getting to know myself and that maybe as a person I need more time,” he says; “I have to get to know myself, to know what I need at each moment. Maybe I am the type of person for whom having such a tight schedule is not good, or that I mentally demand more than I should. I have to see what exactly is happening, but the truth is that I have not thought about all the demands so close together and that that is what could have affected me.”
Asked about possible solutions, he prefers to leave it until he returns to Murcia and analyses the problem in depth, with the Laver Cup (from 20 to 22 September) in sight. “Right now I don’t want to say anything, because if I say anything… then it could be completely the opposite. I don’t know. I have to talk to the people close to me, with my team, with my people, and see what steps we take. We’re going to continue. Obviously, I have tournaments ahead, but, honestly, I don’t want to think about any of that,” he concludes.
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