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He took 3 months away from tennis and grabbed a tour win in his first match again. We all know that Carlos Alcaraz is truly exceptional. The previous World #1 dropped just one set en path to victory on the Argentina Open, his seventh tour title.
After battling hamstring and ab accidents that saved him out of the Australian Open, Alcaraz made the fascinating option to return on clay, a body-brutal floor. He’s enjoying clay forward of the 2 laborious courts of the Sunshine Slam. After which he’ll return to the lengthy and grueling spring of clay on the street to Roland Garros.
This switching between clay and laborious court docket raises the query: What’s going to find yourself being Carlos Alcaraz’s finest floor?
Let’s remove grass for the second as a result of his finest end result at Wimbledon is just the 4th spherical, and for his younger profession, he’s solely 4-2 on grass on the ATP stage. It’s not sufficient of a physique of labor.
In order that leaves clay versus laborious court docket. Of his seven titles, 5 have come on clay. However certainly one of his two titles on laborious court docket is the U.S. Open– that’s an announcement. His efficiency on the 2 surfaces is comparable: Alcaraz is 43-11 on clay and 47-18 on hard. Backside line: It’s early. He’s an adolescent for a couple of extra months. His mind and his recreation are nonetheless malleable. We now have no clue what this child is able to. However let’s have some enjoyable and look at the place his trajectory is likely to be headed when it comes to floor.
Drop Shot
If Carlos Alcaraz has a signature shot on the tender age of 19, it’s the drop shot. It’s thrilling, it’s beguiling and it’s used to win tournaments.
According to stats from the ATP Tour, Alcaraz has a stunning point-win-rate of 68% when using the forehand drop shot. Meaning he not solely executes the shot, however he is aware of when to make use of it and what to do after he has. On the backhand facet, his win proportion is 52%– nonetheless nice. In accordance with the ATP, these percentages go up on clay. In fact they do– it’s a greater shot to make use of on that floor. That stated, if the dropper is the Alcaraz signature, that is an argument in favor of clay being his finest floor for the time being.
Return of Serve
Some gamers are nice servers; some gamers are nice returners; and just like the Large 3, some gamers are each. Carlos Alcaraz is headed towards “each,” however proper now, his return skills have the edge. His ATP serve score on all surfaces for the previous 12 months is ranked 21. His return score is 3.
Alcaraz has an Innate skill to regulate his stroke and return place to the floor. You will notice him stand method again on clay, even on second serve, and take a monster whack on returns, a la Rafael Nadal. And additionally, you will see him stand nearer to the baseline in opposition to hard-court first serves and use his defensive expertise to realize uncanny depth a la Novak Djokovic. He adjusts.
Proper now, his return score on clay is 12. His return score on laborious court docket is a shocking #2– second solely to Daniil Medvedev. Benefit: Exhausting court docket.
Health
Since displaying up on the 2022 Australian Open with weapons for days, Alcaraz has been breaking floor together with his distinctive health ranges. Alcaraz is understood to have a grueling coaching routine that includes a mixture of energy coaching, cardiovascular train, and agility drills. This stage of health is much more essential on clay than it’s on laborious court docket due to the present bounce and barely longer common rally size than on laborious court docket.
His edge over a few of his friends in health and conditioning make him a significant risk on clay.
Within the ultimate evaluation, I see Alcaraz as a barely higher clay court docket participant for the time being. We might additionally merely ask him, and he says his favourite floor is clay. So there you go.
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