Carlos Alcaraz is a more complete player than Federer, Nadal and Djokovic were at 21
“He can do so many different things, right?” said Alexander Zverev after Sunday’s French Open final, in which Carlos Alcaraz romped through the concluding two sets to claim victory by a 6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 margin.
Just as he did in Friday’s semi-final, Alcaraz fought back from a two-sets-to-one deficit to claim victory over the long haul. This is a tribute not only to his physical endurance, but also to the way he evolves his game during a match.
As Novak Djokovic said after last year’s Wimbledon final – in which Alcaraz also prevailed in five sets – “Being able to adapt has been my personal strength for many years. He has it, too.”
Mixing up tactics is only possible when you have a wide variety of options. Alcaraz’s repertoire is unrivalled among the new generation of players, and matches that of the ‘big three’ – Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer – when they moved towards the latter stages of their careers.
But none of those legends had as complete a game as the 21-year-old Alcaraz at such a tender age.
Until he reinvented himself in his late thirties, Federer was too reliant on a chipped backhand return, which Nadal used to gobble up with a ferocious forehand on the third shot of a rally.
Nadal had a relatively humdrum serve, and his gigantic, looping forehand swing could be rushed on the quicker surfaces. His backhand started out as a far less dangerous shot than it eventually became.
Djokovic was also an average server until rebuilding his action in the early 2010s, and struggled at the net throughout the first half of his career.
With Alcaraz, it’s hard to pick these sorts of holes in his game. Perhaps his serve doesn’t land as close to the lines as some, but then that is balanced out by his extraordinary facility on return. Nobody on the tour breaks serve as often. Against Zverev, arguably the world’s best server, Alcaraz scored nine breaks in 22 attempts.
Speaking on his Served podcast, former world No1 Andy Roddick gave a technical and tactical breakdown of the first half of the final.
“Going in, the one part of the match where Alcaraz probably isn’t the favourite is backhand to backhand,” Roddick said. “Alcaraz comes out, he’s hitting one backhand flat, flipping one up above his shoulders, hitting the slice on defence, hitting the drop shot. Zverev is having to move forward, back and side-to-side, and he’s not comfortable in the rally.
“So the adjustment made in the second set: Zverev goes massive on forehand, attacking Carlos’s strength – the forehand side – over and over. Already it’s bananas that Alcaraz is getting the better of the backhand-to-backhand rallies [and Zverev winning the forehand-to-forehands]. Zverev cruises through the second set.”
Roddick spent less time analysing the final phase of the match, but to this observer’s eye, the pace of play dropped considerably as the players tired, the wind got up and the temperature inside the stadium fell.
As the rallies became less frenetic, this brought a more chess-like feel to the contest, and suited Alcaraz’s unlimited box of tricks more than Zverev’s regimented style.
Alcaraz could use the drop shot (a freakish skill we have analysed before in these pages) more easily off balls that weren’t jumping up at him so viciously. He could back away into the so-called Spanish position (where the player hits forehands out of their own backhand corner) without worrying that Zverev would expose the acres of space on the opposite side.
Towards the end, one man was pulling strings and the other was dancing. It’s true that Zverev got the short end of the stick on one line call, which he called the “deciding difference” between 2-2 in the fifth set and Alcaraz leading 3-1. Whatever the details, though, it’s rare that the reactive player defeats the man dictating play.
“My main goal is being aggressive as much as I can,” said Alcaraz after the match. “I’m trying on that moment, just to go for it, play my style, go to the net, drop shots, hitting big shots. If I lose it, if I miss it, my feelings are really good, much better [than] if I go defensive and lose it anyway.”
Here is the thinking behind the most joyful playing style in tennis. Long may it last, because Alcaraz encapsulates everything that is beautiful in the game: the creativity, the variety, and the risk.
He is also the youngest man to win major titles on all three surfaces, undercutting Nadal’s record by more than a year. As we have seen, this feat is the natural consequence of Alcaraz’s multi-dimensional game. In the man’s own words: “Being aggressive, in all surfaces, I think it’s a pretty good thing.”
