This happens every time Carlos Alcaraz takes the field. He did something so hilarious that people who have been watching tennis matches for decades swear they’ve never seen their favorite doubles partner live before.
They’re probably right, because even though he’s been a mess (for him) over the past six months or so, going through some form of sophomore slump, Alcaraz has never failed to create something that’s impressive A performance of wonder.
The moment came a little more than halfway through the first set against Daniil Medvedev in the BNP Paribas Open final in Indian Wells on Sunday.
As Alcaraz closed in on the net, he fired a perfect short lob. At first, he thought he could leap backwards and hit it—but midway through the maneuver, he realized he had to turn, leap, and chase it, just before it landed on the purple hard court for the second time, He did it.
This is when Alcaraz really takes over. At the last moment, he realized he couldn’t hit the ball because of the way he held the racquet in his forehand. At this point, almost everyone who does this for a living takes a desperate shot and the ball flies off the ground and into the net. Not so with Alcaraz.
In an instant, he made a slight rotation of his wrist and struck the ball with the back of the string.
The match continued, and a few shots later he hit a forehand across the baseline and Medvedev watched the ball blow by.
Just like that, tennis is back to where it was last summer, with Alcaraz making his case for the sport’s present and future, making opponents fight for every shot and locking in while watching the last mistake float off the court. won the title and then embraced his tennis father and coach Juan Carlos Ferrero and his biological father as thousands of fans basked in the cheers of him.
Hours later, with a huge glass trophy placed next to him after his 7-6(5), 6-1 victory, Alcaraz could not explain what exactly happened in that first minor miracle. .
“There’s something wrong with my feet and I can’t jump,” he said. “When something like that happens, you have to throw another ball in and run to the next ball.”
Alcaraz has said multiple times over the past two weeks that the past few months have been difficult for him. Losing was strange, but the main problem was that when he stepped onto the court, whether in practice or in a game, he struggled to find the same joy he felt with a racquet in his hand. His family and coaches kept asking him what was wrong.
He didn’t have an answer, which somehow made it worse. When he sprained his ankle in Rio last month, he was at the lowest point of his career.
(Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
For nearly 200 years, and maybe even longer, people have come to California to start over, to reboot their identities, or to try to find their ancient, true identities. That’s what happened to Alcaraz in the Coachella Valley over the past two weeks.
The boy is back, and when he is, the show starts again, and never before in front of a crowd of 16,000 in the first set like the frenzied moments of sprints, wrist flicks and line crossings. crazy.
“Things like this give me extra motivation and put a smile on my face,” he said with a smile on his face.
This will happen soon. Alcaraz is too talented and too dedicated to the sport to let these eight months without a championship last much longer. Why would the trajectory of his early career be different?
When the first whispers of suspicion begin to appear, while his close friend and rival Jannik Sinner is fighting for supremacy, Alcaraz comes to life. He defeated Sinner in the semifinals here, ending the Italian’s 19-game winning streak, and then exacted revenge on Medvedev, who ended his title defense at the start of the US Open break in September. effort.
Alcaraz is nothing if not tough, especially when a front-line crowd is around, as he was Sunday in the desert. Rod Laver, Maria Sharapova, actress Charlize Theron, Zendaya and Tom Holland were all present. A tennis match turned into a great match when Alcaraz was on the court, especially in the finals, and in those early years he almost always excelled. When that stopped happening over the past eight months, something felt wrong in the tennis world.
no longer. The victory gave Alcaraz his second consecutive title, considered by many players and many in the sports world to be the most important non-Grand Slam event. This is the 13th title of his career, and even if the next time he reaches the top ranking in the sport (which will happen soon), it will be his second time at No. 1. In 2022, at the age of 19, he became the youngest player ever to top the leaderboard.
(Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
After the game, Medvedev sat in the dressing room with his coach Giles Cervala, told him he had no regrets about the afternoon’s events, and asked Cervala if he did. Cervara said there was a shot or two here and there, but this one was Alcaraz’s bat.
Medvedev said when Alkaraz raised his level in the first set, he “I managed to get there and try to catch up to his level, but I was just a little frustrated. In the end, it just kept going down, down, down, while he was going up, up, up.”
Alcaraz wasn’t the only one trying to bring order to the world on Sunday. In the women’s final, Iga Swiatek defeated Maria Sakkari to win her second Indian Wells title in three years. Swiatek won 6-4, 6-0, defeating Greece’s most successful female player with her trademark crisp efficiency. Swiatek being Swiatek, this victory provided at least one instance of pure dominance – the bagel in the second-set score that often adds an exclamation point to her many victories.
Swiatek, 22, is already a four-time Grand Slam winner but has not won one since June. She showed her resilience last fall when she lost the No. 1 spot she held for 76 weeks. She found her form towards the end of the season, but she stumbled early at the Australian Open, where Swiatek’s dominance seemed to be undermined as Aryna Sabalenka hit her stride. threaten. Ten days ago, when her match began in Indian Wells, there were even more reasons to be nervous.
She opened against Danielle Collins, who nearly beat her in Australia. Afterwards, young Czech Linda Noskova sent her back home to Melbourne. Collins got three games. Noskova scored four points. Both ate their second plate of bagels.
Swiatek won here two years ago and then two weeks later at the Miami Open to complete the Sunshine Double, a breakthrough moment for her. A master of clay-court tennis, she suddenly proved to herself that she could win on hard courts.
“This time around, I’m very satisfied with my job,” Swiatek said.
Her opponents don’t have that many. They knew she had turned her dominance and efficiency into a strategy that led to a 19-4 record and a six-game winning streak in finals because she had so much energy in reserve.
(Robert Prange/Getty Images)
“I’ve hit bigger hitters, but at the same time she takes away time from you,” Sakkari said. “It took me a few games to get used to her timing.”
What’s scary for all the other women is that the sweet spot of Swiatek’s season, her clay court swing, is still three weeks away. In previous years, stepping onto clay was like going home, and she was looking forward to it.
“It doesn’t really matter now,” she said a little crookedly.
For Alcaraz, flexibility often comes in the form of those little miracles, which he creates more than anyone else. Medvedev often gets things done of his own, and he knows what effects they can have when you complete them successfully.
“You feel like, okay, you can do more and more, hit stronger, hit faster, do better,” he said.
That’s what happened as the match entered the second set and its seemingly inevitable ending. At times, it felt like the ball coming off Alcaraz’s racket defied the laws of physics, losing no speed from the moment it came off the racket to the moment it bounced in front of Medvedev’s eyes or flew past him.
Medvedev would hit the ball over and over again, while Alcaraz would pass the ball back without a care in the world.
“He hit a great shot and I was in trouble and I lost it,” Medvedev said. “It’s so hard. Psychologically, it’s not easy to fight that.”
No one knows this better than Alcaraz. From 80 feet away, it is not difficult to see the enemy’s shoulders slumped, his spirit broken, his head shaking with surprise and helplessness.
Nothing helps more than a little magical thinking and hitting, both in the moment and in the long run. He said a frenzied series of shots when tensions were high was good for the game, both for him and the wider game and, more importantly, for his soul.
“I always smile and say I’m playing better,” he said. “A score like this doesn’t matter if I win or lose, it puts a smile on my face no matter what. I think it helps me keep improving my game and show my best tennis .”
Smart investors believe Alcaraz’s best tennis is yet to come.
(Top photo: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
