Carlos Alcaraz made a winning start at the 2023 Cinch Championships though he doesn't have any huge expectations of it.
Carlos Alcaraz travelled to London without his coach leaning on the coach of his friend Pablo Carreno Busta. Ferrero will join Alcaraz next week in London. The Spaniard played only two grass events before this one and there were some concerns about his familiarity with grass as he admitted himself that it's not the best surface for him.
The expectations are not that high for this part of the year. Alcaraz is aware that he likely won't be able to beat Djokovic on grass, but he will try. The expectations for this event certainly aren't high as he admitted after the match.
Well, honestly my expectation in this tournament are not too high (smiling). You know, I have played two tournaments on grass in my career. I'm not going to count the juniors obviously. It was two Wimbledons. I have played just five or six matches in my career. This is my seventh match.
The first match this year on the surface was a solid win over Arthur Rinderknech, even though he was down a break in the final set. It's a match he could have technically lost and playing more matches will help him with that. It's a surface with a learning curve and he understands that.
So I have not played too much on grass. So I have to, you know, play on grass, put hours on grass on my back and have more experience than that. I'm just focused on, you Wimbledon and of course have experience on grass.
Up next for him is a very good matchup as he faces another player with very little grass experience. Jiri Lehecka is a solid player and one of the rising stars on the ATP Tour, but the Czech player certainly is no grass expert.
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