Playing the long game, Alcaraz looking to peak in Turin

“A few days ago I read an interview where Juan Carlos [Ferrero] was saying that I have to learn that the season stretches from January to November. He couldn’t be more right. Maybe I struggled to handle the last part of the season. I have so many things to improve on, and that’s one of them. Learning that a tennis player’s season doesn’t end in June, August or September, it lasts until November.”

Carlos Alcaraz uttered these words in November 2023, shortly after bowing out in the semis of the Nitto ATP Finals at the hands of Novak Djokovic, in reference to his handling of the closing stages of the season, the tournaments following the US Open.

In 2023, after the final Grand Slam of the season, Alcaraz was knocked out in the semi-finals in Beijing (by Jannik Sinner), he won two matches in Shanghai and lost his first in Paris before arriving at the Nitto ATP Finals and suffering immediate defeat to Alexander Zverev.

Although he would make amends for his sluggish start (seeing off both Andrey Rublev and Daniil Medvedev to progress from his group into the semis, where he lost to the Serb), the Murcia native was highly critical of himself. Ferrero was in full agreement with his understudy.

“After the US Open, our level dropped a bit and in that regard we have to improve,” admitted Ferrero at the time. “You have to be more focused on being a professional all the time. On the other hand, we know that we have to improve his game and his mentality. These things should mature now he’s in his 20s. He is very self-critical.”

There are many things that set Alcaraz apart. One of them is his enormous capacity to learn, despite practically still being a teenager (22). While the 2023 season proved too long for him, in 2024 he has worked to ensure that will not happen again.

Following this year’s US Open, despite having endured a very intense summer, which included the Olympic Games in Paris (where he won silver), Alcaraz helped Spain qualify for the Davis Cup Finals (winning two singles points, against France and the Czech Republic, respectively), was a key player in Team Europe’s Laver Cup win (claiming the winning point against Taylor Fritz), and he enjoyed a successful Asian swing, where he won an epic final against Jannik Sinner to claim the trophy in Beijing (he also lost in the quarters to Tomas Machac in Shanghai).

His last-sixteen defeat in Paris to Ugo Humbert was a misstep that belies the obvious: Alcaraz learned his lesson in 2023 and has reached the closing stages of the 2024 season still hungry, switched on, and ready to go.

No sooner said than done; the Spaniard has arrived in Turin having done his homework. He is now ready to take on the challenge of becoming the champion of champions.

[NEWSLETTER FORM]