Alcaraz's Different Path Contrasted With Nadal: 'Strictly To Win Slams' Says Former Player
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Carlos Alcaraz is still a very young tennis player, but he's already making some strategic choices that couldn't be observed during Rafael Nadal's career.
Tennis is a relatively young sport. The Open Era started less than six decades ago, with professionalism in the sport becoming higher and higher every year.
The way players approached the sport 30 years ago was much different from how they approached it 15 years ago and from how they approach it today.
One of the reasons for that is that with every year in the history books, there is more data to observe various trends and developments that might have helped or not.
One of the most often talked about points in tennis is the schedule. There are four Grand Slam tournaments, which are the most important events in the sport.
The first one is held at the very start of the season, then two are held almost back-to-back in the middle of the season, and another one concludes the season.
There are many different ways that players can work their way around such a schedule, and it changes almost constantly. For example, only a few years ago, Rafael Nadal had a very straightforward approach.
The Spanish legend played every tournament he could have played, and it was almost unthinkable for him to miss an event because of a scheduling decision.
In the long run, that cost him a lot, as Nadal struggled with injuries during his tennis career, which ultimately prevented him from being an even more successful tennis player.
On the latest episode of the Nothing Major podcast, former ATP World No. 21 Steve Johnson analyzed this approach, comparing it to Alcaraz's, which, according to him, is focused on the majors.
"Looking back at Rafa’s career, someone I’m sure he looked up to quite a bit, he played every tournament and won every Masters series forever but was hurt a lot. I feel like Carlos Alcaraz is doing his schedule strictly to win Slams."
Alcaraz is not afraid to skip the ATP Masters 1000 tournaments, such as the Madrid Open or the Canadian Open, which are events held relatively close to majors.
According to Johnson, Alcaraz is doing this in order to reach 20 Grand Slam titles, which is the number that every member of the Big Three managed to win.
"He is missing Masters series, he skipped Madrid, or he’s not playing Montreal or whatever, I think his only goal is to win Slams. Steve continued: He wants to get to that 20 number."
"Maybe I am wrong on that but that is what it feels like his schedule is doing. He is missing certain events that Rafa never missed in his career but ultimately had a lot of injuries."
