Carlos Alcaraz has admitted that he picked up a learning experience last season and has identified an area of improvement next year.
The Spanish sensation lost his place as the ATP World No. 1 to Novak Djokovic in 2023 but added a second Grand Slam title in his remarkable young career at Wimbledon. Overall, the campaign was far from a smooth ride.
Alcaraz began the season with the disappointing news that he would withdraw from the Australian Open due to a leg injury. At the French Open, he was afflicted by cramps in a semifinal match against Djokovic, which had an anticlimactic finish.
Winning the titles at Queen's and Wimbledon - his first on grass - were among the highlights of his 2023 season. But he endured a significant slump post-US Open, which proved telling in the outcome of the year-end No. 1 ranking.
At 20, Alcaraz has already raised the bar compared to players his age. He feels the pressure of the spotlight, and the lights have never dimmed. When he suffered three successive defeats towards the end of last season, some tennis fans were worried whether his gung-ho style of play would be sustainable for his body in the long term.
Alcaraz believes there is no reason to panic. He did bounce back superbly at the ATP Finals in Turin, where he qualified from his group and made the semis. If anything, he is learning to deal with the compact calendar and hopes for an improvement next year.
"For example, another thing I need to be better at is the final part of the season, after the U.S. Open. (It doesn’t end when the tournament finishes). I need to keep training, and keep maintaining myself and my focus, to have a better finish. It needs to be better than what I did this year."
Alcaraz spoke to a group of guests during his most recent tennis clinic at the One&Only Palmilla in Los Cabos. He told a small group of guests at the resort that he was satisfied with how the season panned out in the end and how his loss at the French Open taught him how to deal with unexpected on-court situations.
"It has been an incredibly good year. I started off on the wrong foot withdrawing from Australia, but Wimbledon was spectacular. Though, I actually thought the year would be more difficult. That it would be difficult to match 2022."
"One thing I learned in 2023 is how to face (and move past) certain on-court situations, such as what happened against Djokovic at Roland-Garros."
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