Carlos Alcaraz: US Open Champion & Tennis Prodigy

Grand mouths are rather rare among tennis professionals. Sure, there is the Australian Nick Kyrgios, who likes his role as Prahlhans and provocateur, and a few other sloping birds. But mostly on the tour, players who find every defeat as instructive and also celebrate every victory. After all, even if successful, you discover one or the other that needs to be improved.

If someone sits down after a triumph and claims, “I played perfectly, you just have to say that”, then he is still not a big man. Then it is Carlos Alcaraz, and he can say that. With his self -praise, he finally had right after his famous final victory over Jannik Sinner in New York.

The Mister Perfect from Spain had a good laugh and praise on Sunday. For the second time he won the US Open and a Grand Slam tournament for the sixth time, which now collected as many big titles at the age of 22 as Boris Becker in his entire career. To the leading of the world rankings, Alcaraz has risen again after the 6: 2, 3: 6, 6: 1, 6: 4 against Sinner after he had conquered the top position in September 2022 for the first time. “It was one of my first goals of the season as soon as possible,” said Alcaraz, who went to his 37th week on Monday.

Table of Contents

• “He has no weaknesses”
• Two against the rest of the world
• Alcaraz vs. Sinner: Key Stats and Head-to-Head
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Started moderately into the tennis year, Alcaraz has won 47 matches in spring since the beginning of the clay court season and only lost two (final). He won six of the eight tournaments in which he competed from Monte Carlo to New York. And that he lost only one in the Wimbledon final of the past eight duels against his dear rival Sinner underlines his exceptional position.

The tennis world showed itself at the US Open skills of the magic that Alcaraz spread from the first to the last day. It was not only the A-celebrities in the audience, including the US President. “He has no weaknesses,” had to acknowledge the sinner, who had been defending champion and world ranking. Even Alcaraz ‘trainer Juan Carlos Ferrero, who, as a former world ranking list and Grand Slam tournament winner, always makes the highest demands, was taken with the performance of his young compatriot. “His appearance was incredible,” said Ferrero, from whom nothing was heard when he looked after Alexander Zverev a few years ago.

The fact that Alcaraz is the most talented tennis player of the present appears undisputed. It has so many different strokes and variants that its greatest difficulty often consists of selecting the appropriate situations. Because he succeeds more and more, his game is subject to fewer fluctuations than at the beginning of the year. The Spaniard is still happy to live out his tendency to play with playfulness and craziness with which he wants to show his class and entertain the audience. “As he plays, it is easier for him to enjoy it and enjoy it,” said Ferrero.

The first set against Sinner worked like a condensate of his outstanding two New York tournament weeks. Alcaraz served Famos, even on the second surcharge, which had still turned out to be a decisive vulnerability in the Wimbledon final against Sinner. He hit his forehand straight and hard, sometimes with a lot of play, but always placed as necessary. Occasionally he sprinkled a stop ball, or he just did it and played an undercovered forehand on the baseline. “To be honest, I have the feeling that I can do everything on the square: slice, stops, topspin, just strikes, go online,” said Alcaraz exuberant self -analysis. In addition, he is so nimble that he reaches Sinner’s high -speed strokes that other players can only look after.

What Alcaraz shows may look as light -handed as magical. But nobody should be fooled. The following applies what TV viewers can hear in tennis broadcasts by Roger Federer in watch advertising: “Effectiveness is a myth.” It is difficult to work to make everything look light.

Alcaraz had imposed such hard work, especially this year. First in winter, when he improved his serve, and last after he lost the Wimbledon final in July. Before he flew into the USA to the USA, he worked under Ferrero’s leadership on certain details “of which I felt like I had to improve them to beat Jannik”. Alcaraz and his trainer did not want to reveal what details these were. However, Sinner felt the result: “He was clearer than me.” The Italians criticized his own way of playing as “predictable” because he rarely tried stop balls or serve and volley. Staying in your own comfort zone may be enough to win against 99 percent of competitors – by no means against Carlos Alcaraz.

In the course of the tournament, such opponents also had to experience that there was no grass against the Spaniard in top form. They had come up with a lot and also implemented well like the world ranking list Jiri Lehecka. The Czech, as he said after the defeat in the round of 16, could not do anything against the “Grand Slam version of Carlos”: “Even if we got very good rallies, he had an answer to everything I tried.” In the spring in Doha, Lehecka won against the Spaniard. In New York he won ten serve games in three sentences.

If the trend continues, the men’s tennis will be under the motto until further notice: “Two against the rest of the world – and against each other”. All eight Grand Slam tournaments have won Alcaraz and Sinner since the beginning of 2023; Every two every year. The rest is rushed, so the tennis legend Rod Laver asked about the US Open final on social media: “Who should stop the two?” Especially since Sinner is now the hunter and around the clock will do everything possible to playfully develop an antidote to Alcaraz ‘dominance.

Although there are still a few weeks to play, the Spaniard is already craving the Australian Open. If he won for the first time in Melbourne, he would have won each of the four Grand Slam tournaments at least once and thus completed the “career grand slam”. He proudly fulfills that his game level is no longer as fluctuating as it used to be and he appears mature, said Alcaraz. His trainer Ferrero expresses it like this: “He grows.” You can understand that as a warning to everyone. In the sense: Carlos Alcaraz is not yet mature.