Using clichés, it is often said in the world of sports that although reaching the top of any discipline is very difficult, what is really difficult is staying there. With that mission, that of consolidating himself as the star of today and tomorrow of tennis after the takeoff of 2022, he faced Carlos Alcaraz the year 2023. And judging by the loot conquered, there can be little doubt that he has achieved it. Six titles, including a Grand Slam and two Masters 1,000, and a record of 53 wins and only 12 losses that has allowed him to finish the year as number two and be in the fight for the top of the ranking until practically the last day of the season are the endorsement of a season in which, for several months, he was considered the great rival to beat.
Thus, raw, it sounds like a dream year, unattainable for almost any other tennis player. And even more so if it is a young man of barely 20 years old like the man from Murcia, who, far from giving up in the face of the challenge of confirming the expectations placed on him after his meteoric emergence, also did so looking face to face at a Novak Djokovic rehabilitated after the troubles of the covid vaccine and that has put in check the debate of the best tennis player in history, at least as far as achievements are concerned.
A Djokovic whom he faced four times during the year, losing in three, including the semifinal of Roland Garros in which he retired injured, but taking home the most remembered. In Wimbledonin the Serbian’s garden, who was looking to reach Roger Federer’s eight wounds on the grass of the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Clubboth tennis players starred in a final to remember that the Murcian ended up conquering in an agonizing fifth set to score the second Grand Slam of his career.
Before, Alcaraz, who missed the Open the Australia Due to the injuries that tormented him at the beginning of the year, he had shown that his tennis knows no limits or weaknesses on any surface. On the way to London, number two conquered the Indian Wells Masters 1,000 (cement) and revalidated his crown in that of Madrid (land)to which he added the Queen’s ATP 500 (grass)a prelude to what was to come in London.
A bitter end to the year after the zenith of Wimbledon
And yet, proof of the ambition he displayed during his early career, it has not ended up being enough for him or his team. Perhaps because of the bitter aftertaste that he leaves at the end of the season, where he arrived broken and assuming that he still lacks a little point to reach the level that the Serbian shows throughout the year.
Until the US Openwhere they defended their crown and fell in the semifinals against Daniil Medvedev, the El Palmar season had been one of tuition. Competing in every tournament, almost always reaching the final rounds and showing a consistency inappropriate for a 20-year-old tennis player. But from September onwards, faded to black.
As if he had lost his spark, without having fun and without smiling on the track, something that Alcaraz has highlighted on several occasions as an essential factor to bring out his best version, he wandered around the tour under a blurred roof until he reached the ATP Finals in Turinwhere despite raising his flight a little he ended up being eliminated by Djokovic in a clash in which the Serbian did not grant him a single option.
You have to learn to be professional and do things when you have to: train when you have to, disconnect when you have to, have fun when you have to. It’s been 20 years and we know that you are trying to improve
The Paris Games on the horizon
Signs that raised certain alarms among his team, which immediately warned him both privately and publicly. “You have to learn to to be professional and do things when it’s time: train when it’s time, disconnect when it’s time, have fun when it’s time. It’s 20 years and we know that he knows that and that he is trying to improve it,” he scolded him. his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero Before going on vacation.
“I have to learn. Now I know everything I have to improve if I want to beat the best player in the world,” agreed Alcaraz, who until now has proven to be a dedicated student, after closing his year in Turin. “I realize what I have to improve, that is very important. I leave feeling bad and hurt, but knowing what I have to focus on in the preseason to improve the things that I have not done well today and in which I want to be top. “We are going to train, we are going to prepare Australia in the best possible way,” he warned, assuming Ferrero’s speech as his own.
With the lesson learned, Alcaraz now aims for a 2024 in which, together with Djokovic, he will be the rival to beat (permission through Rafa Nadal who has already announced his return to the circuit after a year of injury) and in which already known objectives appear, with the first stop in Australia in less than a month , and another marked in red on the calendar and who, perhaps for the last time in his career, will once again experience the feeling of being a debutant: the Paris Olympic Games.
2023-12-28 06:42:08
#Carlos #Alcaraz #euphoria #scolding #year #confirmation
