Carlos Alcaraz had a tremendous Wimbledon campaign last year but everything after that was rather uninspiring from the Spaniard.
The Spaniard arrived in England with the hope of learning how to play well on grass. He did far more than that by winning the Queen's Club ATP 500 event and then adding a second Grand Slam at Wimbledon by beating Novak Djokovic in the final.
Everybody expected some great things from him after that and while he had some great moments it didn't quite live up to the hype. He played in the Cincinnati Open final and almost won and made the US Open semi-final but the drop off after that was noticeable.
His stay in China wasn't very good and the indoor season didn't show anything different either. He did play well at the ATP Finals but got beaten rather easily in the semi-final leaving him visibly disappointed. Over a month after that, following his third-round win at the 2024 Australian Open, Alcaraz addressed the 'slump' he had after Wimbledon.
"Well, that's a goal obviously to maintain my level during the whole season. Yeah, as you said, probably after Wimbledon I lost few games that I had not to lose, but obviously this is tennis, everything can happen."
Alcaraz almost didn't seem focused enough in some of those matches. The US Open match against Daniil Medvedev was one he lamented often in the weeks after admitting to not handling it well. The goal right now is to focus on doing the right things.
"But, yeah, I fell in that side. I don't focus any different things. I'm just focused to do the right things, probably the good things that I did last year, and improve the things that I did wrong."
"But obviously in this part of the year I hope to do it well. I hope to do it as same as 2023. The second part of the year is to maintain my good level and see how it's going to be."