Carlos Alcaraz battled Novak Djokovic twice so far in his career and he lost a higher-stakes match recently at Roland Garros, blaming pressure for the loss.
The first time Alcaraz faced Djokovic on the ATP Tour was last year at the Madrid Open where the Spaniard proved better by beating Djokovic in three sets. It was a major achievement for the youngster who beat Nadal and Djokovic in back-to-back matches.
He won the trophy that year and won the Madrid Open this year again but faced Djokovic on a different clay court. It was in Paris at Roland Garros recently and the result was different.
Alcaraz caved under the pressure and started to cramp resulting in a very anticlimactic end to the match. Djokovic went on to make history by winning his 23rd Grand Slam trophy while Alcaraz was left trying to pinpoint what went wrong.
He might get a chance to face him again at Wimbledon, something he described earlier as a very tough prospect. He is eager to end his dominance at Wimbledon but it's a very hard thing to do. He hasn't lost on the Centre Court in almost 10 years and that's a lot of pressure on someone who hasn't even won 10 matches on grass so far in his career.
Well, the pressure. I would say the pressure that they put to everyone. You know, not only to me, to everyone to play at their best about three hours in a Grand Slam. I'm talking about the Grand Slam.
I have to deal with that, but is something that I really want it. I hope to play a final here against him. But for me, this probably is the toughest thing facing Novak.
Time will tell whether they face each other at Wimbledon but it has the potential to be a really great match, hopefully a bit longer than the one in Paris recently.
0 Comments