Calm down, calm down, Carlos Alcaraz asks when asked how his right ankle is, which was the victim of one of those twists during training sessions that usually lead to more than one scare. It’s just a scare. And there he is, smiling and eager to give himself another treat in a season of bells and whistles, summed up in a stroke of success. Once the champagne has been uncorked in March, titles and history: Indian Wells, Roland Garros, Wimbledon again, Olympic silver and… why not a second US Open, the place where two years ago he opened the virtuous circle and reached the number one spot?
“I don’t think it’s anything serious. After stopping, I haven’t felt anything, my ankle is fine, everything is under control; we’re going to be taking care of it more than usual these days, but I think it will just be a scare and tomorrow or the day after I’ll be 100%,” reassures the Murcian, who will debut on Tuesday against the Australian Li Tu (188th in the world) and who arrives in Flushing Meadows dragging the physical and mental fatigue typical of these dates, when the tennis players have already completed two thirds of the course and everything is already weighing on them, so the issue is not so much about ailments as about the head, about that last blow to the kidney.
Behind her is a summer of strong emotions, with the second high of Wimbledon, the Olympic silver that she now tastes much better — “days later I realized that it was a great achievement” — and the unexpected episode of Cincinnati, where the tension played a trick on her that went viral, with the subsequent judgment and comparison on the networks, surely unfair both. “I had never reacted in this way, but at the same time I think it is something normal; not smashing the racket like I did, but having some kind of reactions that in the end one does not control, because you do not control yourself. I think that everyone at some point in their life has not been able to control their emotions and has done things they did not want. It is not the right thing, but beyond that…”, she explains.
And now, a clean slate.
“I’m not coming here with too much hunger or to get rid of any thorns. I want to do well at every tournament I go to, I want to win. Apart from that, the US Open is very special for me, it’s one of the best in the world without a doubt, so I really want to do well and win it, but not because of what I did or what happened in Cincinnati (where he smashed his racket during the duel with Monfils, the winner in that first round). I’ve more or less put that behind me. I didn’t want to think much more about that match, but rather to train at 100%,” he answers, aware that he faces a very considerable challenge.
Instinctive adaptation
The 2022 champion approaches the New York Grand Slam having played just one preparatory match – the aforementioned loss to the Frenchman – and after a dizzying quarter in which, in addition to having burned a lot of fuel, he has been subjected to a significant load of emotional tension. Added to this are the transfers, always in the race to compress the calendar: clay-grass-clay-cement in a very narrow interval, without time to rehearse sufficiently or to adapt the necessary change of surface. However, Alcaraz is not afraid of this circumstance and continues to rely on instinct and quality, which the formula has worked more than well so far.
Not one to make excuses, he expresses more hunger. “I don’t care. I would have loved to have more matches under my belt on hard courts before the US Open, obviously, but it doesn’t affect me at all. If I look back a little, for example, I arrived at Roland Garros without many matches on clay and I got a very good result, and at Wimbledon the same, so I don’t want to think that it will be the same as in the previous Grand Slams, but I’m not worried about not having played as much on hard courts,” says the player from El Palmar, who despite his youth has shown an unusual ability to adapt to the change of terrain practically on the fly.
From Paris to North America with hardly any pause, and facing the attractive challenge of maintaining his form and not slowing down. Knocked out of the tournament a year ago by Russian Daniil Medvedev in the semi-finals, he now hopes that Cincinnati was just a temporary blowout – “the worst match of my career” – and that the New York crowd can once again enjoy that version that dazzles, that speed of execution that is practically unique today. Alcaraz and New York are a perfect match, but the upcoming dates hide traps and require gritting one’s teeth again in a territory that has been rather unpredictable in recent times: seven different winners in the last decade.
“I BELIEVE IN CLEAN SPORT”
Alcaraz also spoke about the news surrounding this edition, Jannik Sinner’s positive doping test. “It’s a really difficult moment for him. I believe in clean sport. So I don’t know much about it. But, if they let Jannik continue playing, it’s for a reason. They have said he is innocent. So that’s all I can say about it,” he said in English.
Then, during the Spanish-language round, he added: “I don’t believe in that (grievances regarding punishments based on the status of the players). In the end, it is a very delicate, very serious issue. I think there is something behind all this that many people don’t know, probably even I don’t know. He tested positive, but there must be some reason why they let him continue playing that we don’t know about. In the end, he has been acquitted, they have declared him innocent and he is in the tournament. There is not much more to say.”
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