Carlos Alcaraz declared his arm to be 'fully recovered' after his first match at the 2024 Roland Garros, which he won in straight sets.
There were a lot of question marks around the Spaniard heading into the season's second major. Quite a few people wondered whether he could fully utilize his arm when hitting the forehand as he couldn't the last time he played in Madrid.
He's a different kind of player when he can hit as hard as he wants to and he seemingly had that ability in the match against J.J. Wolf. It was largely an unproblematic match for him, which he won in three sets, demonstrating great shotmaking from both the forehand and the backhand side.
Wolf had no chance in the match and it was great to see for the 21-year-old's fans who weren't able to enjoy a lot of tennis from him in the recent weeks.
His only preparation for this event was the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid, and he only played four matches there, so it was important for him to easily cruise in his first-round match in Paris. After the match, Acaraz was asked about his arm and he declared it fully recovered.
"Well, yeah, I think the arm is 100%. Obviously I’m still feeling weird, let's say, or afraid to hit every forehand 100%. It's still in my mind, but I didn't feel anything after the match, I didn't feel anything, which is really, really good for me. So I can say it's full recovered. Yeah, the second one, if everything goes well, we are going to play doubles together here."
The ability to go deep in this event will rest on whether he can use the forehand fully. As his words suggest, he's still a bit shy of really going full force but he won't need to in these early matches.
When he faces someone like Jannik Sinner or Novak Djokovic down the line, he'll need that power, but until then, he can ease himself into being comfortable with going for it.
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