Let’s start with an important qualifier: Carlos Alcaraz will probably do well.
He is 20 years old this year. He has won two Grand Slam titles, but neither on clay, probably his best surface and certainly the surface he is most familiar with. At 19, he became the youngest person to reach the top spot.
Even his top competitors, including contemporaries such as Jannik Sinner, expected Alcaraz to be the greatest player of his era. He will win many tournaments, many of them Grand Slams. It’s just that he hasn’t won a match since defeating Djokovic in five sets in the Wimbledon final eight months ago.
This is the longest stretch he has gone without winning ATP Tour level titles since he started winning them in 2021.
This is a bit strange.
Remember those heady days after Wimbledon?
When he returned to beat Djokovic, the best grass-court player in the world, on Center Court, there was a sense that he had taken the torch away from the Serbian champion, who has won more Grand Slams and championships . Almost everything else, rather than almost everyone. This was supposed to be the start of a long run of Alcaraz winning just about everything.
Alcaraz celebrates the Wimbledon trophy last year (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
This can still happen. It just hasn’t happened yet.
Since winning Wimbledon, he has a respectable 24-11 record. Sinner won his first title at the Australian Open in January, took two weeks off before heading to Rotterdam and winning another title. He is undefeated this year and has not lost a game since mid-November. The pair will begin play later this week at the so-called “fifth major” BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California.
“I have to improve a lot of things on and off the court,” Alcaraz said earlier this year.
He lamented his lapse in concentration midway through the game. He’s never been able to explain those nights when he found the pitch with his often lethal base kick. He said that when he occasionally trained with Djokovic, he would work on how to concentrate, eager to one day approach every game and every training session with Djokovic’s intensity. Players like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were once considered untouchable, having set the standard for the sport over the past decade and beating both men.
Like every player, Alcaraz knows his weaknesses, which are a mysterious combination of physical, technical and psychological.
Alcaraz declined to be too specific about what he needs to do to improve, leaving it to others to figure out the answer to a question that feels a bit silly now that he has won $27.5 million in prize money and tens of millions in sponsorships. Since the start of 2023, he is 71-15.
But anyway, the thing is still like this :wWhat happened to King Carlos?
The short answer is, not too many, unless there are a lot of them.
Djokovic, Sinner, Daniil Medvedev and Alexander Zverev, four of today’s best players, are responsible for six of Alcaraz’s 11 losses since July, including He retired in February due to an ankle injury in Rio de Janeiro. It’s not a terrible shame, it’s just that he beat everyone on the roster pretty easily last year except for Djokovic.
Alcaraz retired due to injury at the Rio Olympics (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
To figure out what, if anything, the Alcaraz version has changed from the version that won 11 games in 17 months in 2022 and 2023, we turned to the Wizards for help TennisViz and Tennis Data Innovations, use high-speed cameras to collect ball and player tracking data and analyze it instantly to understand the effectiveness of every shot.
The numbers show Alcaraz is barely a shadow of his former self since Wimbledon compared to his overall performance over the past year, but he has declined enough to make himself more vulnerable. This is especially true when going up against the best of the best, where even the slightest drop can lead to defeat.
However, his performances have dropped off sharply since last summer, with four surprising losses to Nicolas Jarry and Roman Safiulin, and a loss to Grigor Dimitrov Husband and Tommy Paul (who has been Alcaraz’s opponent) are less surprising.
Former coach Tom Corrie, head of performance at Tennis Viz who has spent more time with Alcaraz than most, has a theory about it, which is that the Spaniard is almost too talented.
“This guy has endless tactical options,” Corey said. “His technique is incredible and he hits the ball with so much power, but sometimes he doesn’t follow a clear tactical framework like other players. As a result, he’s often absent from games and doesn’t perform well. When he drops At that time, he dropped greatly.”
Also worth noting – men’s tennis is at crazy depth right now. Even the bottom half of the top 100 has some serious qualities. Enjoyed the early rounds with Tomas Machac (No. 63) from the Czech Republic. Freebies can be few and far between. Alcaraz’s opponents are almost always very aggressive, and they must take some credit for making him play poorly.
Still, some of Alcaraz’s revenue numbers stand out.
One metric is how often Alcaraz “attacks” – which Tennis Viz defines as when a player receives a low-quality incoming ball, occupies an active court position (forward) or has a comfortable point of contact with the ball (not in the when stretching). If a player receives a quality shot but has poor court position (especially deep or wide of the court), or plays in a stretch, then they will be on “defense.”
The average field goal percentage for tournament offenses is 25 percent. On average, Alcaraz attacks 24% of the time, but since Wimbledon that number has dropped to 22%. This may not sound like much, but tennis is a razor-thin sport. A few points can make a big difference, and winning them on defense is even more difficult.
(Marcelo Endeli/Getty Images)
Other stats that show relatively significant changes are the efficiency of his return of serve, forehand and backhand. High-speed cameras and computers produce a score based on the speed and position of each shot – a drawn line or extra score that’s often very close.
On average, Alcaraz has been near the top in every category over the past year.
On a scale of 1 to 10, Alcaraz’s return on serve averaged 7.6, a full point above the tour average and fifth overall. Since Wimbledon, his return has dropped to 7.0, still better than most but only 13th overall.
His backhand rating averaged 8.0 over the past year, ranking sixth overall, but since Wimbledon (15th) his backhand rating has dropped to 7.6. And his deadly forehand, a shot that makes players shudder, also suffered one of the biggest drops, from 8.8 to 8.1, and from second to 15th.
In surprising losses to Paul, Dimitrov, Safiulin and Jarry, Alcaraz essentially amplified those trends.
Against Paul at the National Bank Open in Canada in August, he was on offense only 19 percent of the time. Shanghai faced Dimitrov and Buenos Aires faced Jarry, with an offensive shooting rate of only 20%.
If Alcaraz continues to do the things that have made him so beloved by fans – his ability to magically win a point from a defensive position when all seems lost and he hits a ridiculous forehand from the baseline , then this might not be a problem. running. This is called his “stealing points.”
Since winning Wimbledon, he has averaged 37% of his tackles, but only 30% in those four surprising defeats. Play more defensively, play less Miracles, and you’ll almost certainly lose. Combined with poor execution of the most basic shots, there’s no way Alcaraz is going to win these games.
His forehand quality was 7.3 against Paul and 6.8 against Jarry, both well below the tour average. The same goes for his backhands against Jarry and Saffirin.
His performance against Jarry was not only below his standards, it was well below professional tennis. As you can see from the next two charts, his numbers are below tour average in 10 statistical categories, from forehand speed to the percentage of points won when a match lasts longer than eight shots.
Against Safiulin, when he took control and started the attack, his scoring conversion rate was only 50%. The average rate for tours is 66%.
The effect of all this can be breathtaking. Since Alcaraz is known for being spectacular, it makes a bad show look bad.
“When something goes wrong, it really goes wrong,” Corey said. “If you beat Medvedev, he will still throw thousands of balls on the court. He doesn’t suddenly disappear like Carlos.”
(Above: Marcelo Endelli/Getty Images)
