Alcaraz Bemoans Being 'Nervous' Against Draper: 'I Was Mad With Myself'
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Carlos Alcaraz struggled with nerves in the past, and it happened to him again during his semi-final loss at the 2025 Indian Wells Open.
Alcaraz is an exceptional tennis player. In fact, he's one of the best 21-year-old tennis players the ATP Tour has ever seen. The young Spaniard can be compared to the likes of Rafael Nadal, Boris Becker, and Mats Wilander.
But despite his incredible success, especially at majors, Alcaraz also isn't a perfect player. He might often seem to be almost perfect on the tennis courts when it comes to hitting forehands and backhands, but the mental part of the game is one of Alcaraz's main problems.
The ATP World No. 3 player has struggled with being nervous before, and it's something that he has been quite open about. He famously started cramping during the 2023 French Open semi-final against Novak Djokovic, and the Spaniard has admitted to struggles with nerves many times after that.
He has spoken about his problems recently, saying that he's usually nervous during his first matches at events. This time, those nerves also crept into his semi-final match against Jack Draper.
The second seed lost 1-6, 6-0, 4-6, and he was very honest about how he felt during the match. Alcaraz admitted that he didn't feel well prior to the match.
"Today has been a difficult day for me. I didn't practice well. I didn't feel myself well on the court. Even in the warm-up on the court, I was missing a lot. I didn't feel my shots. So that's why I was talking with Juan Carlos on the bike because I was a little bit mad with myself about the way I warmed up on the court."
"As I said, I didn't approach the match in the best way that I could. So I was nervous during the whole day, in the practice before the match, and I think that affected the match."
Alcaraz's struggles with nerves were a theme during his whole post-match press conference. The Spaniard wasn't so disappointed about the result but about the fact that he couldn't avoid being so nervous.
"Obviously, I wanted to win the third in a row, but I mean, I can't pretend to win every match. I am not as upset about not getting the third one in a row. I am upset about myself, about the way that I approached the match, the way that I felt during the whole day, that I couldn't calm down myself."
"That's, for me, the most disappointing thing that I'm feeling right now, because, I mean, it is probably one of the worst sets that I have played in my whole career, the first set. So that means how nervous I was before the match and during the whole day. So that's, for me, it is really disappointing."
Despite being upset about how he struggled with nerves, Alcaraz had no doubts that he would be able to bounce back. He wants to do well at the Miami Open, where he lifted a title before.
"How much it's gonna take to take the upset? Not too much. Because I consider myself a person who learns from the fails, from the losses. The last time that I lost here was the semifinal, and after all, I won Miami, so I think I will go for it. I will learn from that match, and I will make the most of myself in Miami."
